


Your Smile

by AgeOfRogues



Series: Your Smile [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-07-26 12:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7574377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgeOfRogues/pseuds/AgeOfRogues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, there are things about a person that reminds us the most of them when times get tough or they have made a profound impression on your life. Sometimes it's a person's eyes, their personality, the way they take on a challenge. </p><p>For Kaidan, it was Jamie's smile.</p><p>It happened so rarely, that it was like finding one of the rarest gems in the galaxy and he felt empowered every time he brought it forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on the Mass Effect story of Shepard as they traipse around the galaxy through the trilogy.
> 
> I know that it will seem a little back and forth at first. The first couple chapters are of Kaidan living through the day of Jamie's funeral after Alchera while having flashbacks of the time they spent together through the first game, but once the second game starts, it will be based more in the present, so just stay with me :)
> 
> EDIT: I made slight changes to fix bits that didn't sit right with me. Particularly that Jamie used paper instead of sending a message via the extranet.

_ Your smile, no matter how rare, shines like the sun in our eyes when it comes from behind the clouds. _

**~ Present Day ~**

“…Lieutenant Alenko would like to say a few things. Lieutenant?”

Kaidan looked up at Captain Anderson at the podium in a daze from where he sat between Liara and Garrus in the front row. He had been lost in his thoughts, thinking about Jamie and how he missed the smile he would sometimes manage to pull out of her as the sound of Anderson's voice droned in the background.

He looked up into the robin's-egg blue sky through his sunglasses, cloudless and bright, and followed the sky to where the sun was shining bright above the grey marble plinth erected in Jamie’s honor. A one-ton block of stone to commemorate those lost on the Normandy and the woman who sacrificed everything to ensure no more lives had been lost. It seemed like something paltry compared to what she had accomplished in her short twenty-nine years of life.

Liara nudged him in the side, coercing him focus and to go to the front of the large crowd as they sat, spread out before them like a sea of dress blues and black. Kaidan rose, removed his dark blue hat that came with his own dress blues, and walked to the stage. Ambassadors, Councilors, Alliance Brass - they were all there, looking at the stage, but Kaidan knew that they weren’t there to honor Jamie’s memory, her sacrifice, or those who had been lost.  They were there to show their face for political means. None of them knew Jamie, knew what she had done for them. He didn’t think that the even larger group surrounding the back of the memorial ceremony were there to celebrate her life. Jamie was a historic figure now, in life and death, and people wanted to be able to say that they had been to her funeral since they hadn’t been able to be there for her induction to the Spectres. Some, he was sure, were there because they had truly cared; Others? They probably just wanted to cheer because the infamous Jamie Shepard was dead.

At the podium, he shook Anderson’s hand then took the older man’s place before looking back up at the large block of marble standing behind him a moment. Kaidan sighed then faced the crowd after removing his hat and setting it on the hard surface before him.

“What can be said about Jamie Shepard?” He started, folding his hands together on the stand to keep them from shaking. He’d said seven words and already he could feel his limbs vibrating with the need to mourn. He had to get a hold of himself.

“She was mean and she was ruthless. I’m sure you all know her story by now. But to her, it was an almost expected behavior in her adult life after growing up on her own or after joining a gang at a young age just to survive. Then, when she was grown and trained, to be cast into a deadly mission on her first command with all the blame for its results set on her shoulders. Having the reputation of being a tyrant sometimes felt like the only way to get things done for her. What she felt was expected of her.

“Jamie Shepard was all of those things. But to me, she was more. She was always more.

“Jamie chose to show me, and many of her companions, a side that she kept hidden from the rest world because she had that image of ruthlessness to uphold. To those she choose to trust, she had a side that was far more caring than what she was known for. Some of us even came to care for her as more than the friend she was to all of her crew. And her biotics?  Simply amazing! Truly a sight to behold amidst battle and, had her life not been cut short, would have progressed to something spectacular.” Kaidan paused to get himself back on track.

“Growing up in the Reds, you had to become hard and unfeeling if you wanted to survive and she had to learn that quickly. When she was fifteen, she once told me, she had become the leader of a Reds cell in Surrey, just outside Vancouver. For being so young, she ruled with an iron fist and many twice her age feared her. Under her watch, the cell flourished without resorting to the same, less favorable, money-making means the other cells had.

“Shortly after she turned eighteen, she left the Reds and joined the Alliance a year later. Jamie wanted to have a better life than what she’d once had living on the streets, so she worked hard and persevered. When just being a highly talented Sentinel in the Alliance wasn’t enough for her, she then passed through the N7 program as if it was as easy as breathing, earning her a place of command.

“Then there was Torfan. I don’t think I need to tell you about what happened there.” He cleared his throat to cover the silence that followed before continuing. He tugged at the collar of his dress blues and looked over the crowd before him. All of Jamie’s companions lined the front row of chairs, stony faced and filled with sadness.

“Regardless of what happened after the Blitz, Commander Jamie Shepard was one of the finest commanders I have been assigned to serve under and, if I had been given a chance, I would have continued to do so, as I’m sure the rest of her former crew would agree. Many of you don’t believe she deserves such a tribute here on Earth. But if you knew the real Shepard - knew what she did to protect the galaxy - there would be more to remember her by than a statue in a park that isn’t even close to her place of origin.”

Kaidan sighed as his raised voice echoed about the crowd before him. Emotions were bombarding him again and it was proving more and more difficult to suppress them as he spoke. It was as if his mouth was a spigot that was releasing his feelings through his words like water. He pursed his lips together and turned his head when he felt the presence of another approaching. Anderson placed a hand on his back in comfort and as a silent sign that Kaidan should finish up and Kaidan nodded in understanding.

He replaced his hat on his head, turned back to the marble slab behind him one last time and snapped off a strong salute before walking off the stage and towards the edge of the park, unable to bring himself to continue with the memorial, and didn’t stop until he reached a sky-taxi sitting off to the side of the road lining the park.

“Kaidan Alenko?” Kaidan turned his head towards the voice as he reached for the door handle. A middle-aged man in a fine suit was walking towards him, his graying comb over lifting slightly from the top of his head with the breeze that was blowing down the street. The portly man came to a stop next to him. “Are you Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko?”

“That’s right, mister…”

“Todd, Randall Todd.” He held out his hand to Kaidan in greeting. Out of courtesy, Kaidan took his thick hand and shook it before severing contact. “I am Miss Shepard’s personal attorney. You are a very hard man to find, Mr. Alenko.”

‘ _ Good. _ ’ Kaidan thought to himself with a surprising venom, even in his head. “As I am sure you have heard about the fate of the Normandy and can understand, temporary exile seems an acceptable course to follow for the time being. But, now that you have found me, how can I help you, Mr. Todd?”

Kaidan stared at the shorter man as he set his briefcase on the hood of the taxi and reached into its depths to pull out a thick manila envelope and handed it to Kaidan. The envelope had no distinguishing features except for it being heavier than it looked and his name scrolled neatly across the front. He looked up from the package in his hands to the older gentleman, noting sadness in his eyes.

“I’ve known Miss Shepard since shortly before she joined the Alliance. I was in charge of her monetary affairs in regards to Melina’s future.”

The taller man nodded in understanding. It wasn’t uncommon for an officer to have some kind of plan set up for the off chance they perish on duty. He did. “I see. But what does that have to do with me?”

“Miss Shepard sent me a request to have you present during the reading of her Will in my office, but when I couldn’t find or contact you, I searched for you. Inside is an updated copy of her Last Will and Testament on a datapad with another datapad to you from Jamie that was with the request she sent to me.”

Kaidan’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “What’s on the datapad for me?”

“I did not listen to it, but it seemed to be a voice message of a rather personal matter.  For you.”

“She left a message for me? Are you sure it wasn’t for Liara? They were a couple.”

“It’s your name on the envelope, isn’t it? I have been given nothing additional for Miss T'Soni. Just you, Lieutenant. I received a message from Miss Shepard the day of the accident with the request that I copy her message to you to a datapad. When I noticed that she had updated her Will that night as well, I had a feeling something was happening. Her loss is tremendous indeed and she will be sorely missed.”

With that, Mr. Todd nodded his head and walked back up the sidewalk before entering a black sky car and taking off to only God knew where. Kaidan looked back down at the envelope in his hands, feeling its thickness and increased weight after what the lawyer told him. He tucked the envelope into one side of his coat and turned back to the taxi, giving the driver the address he wanted.

Kaidan did his best to resist the temptation to open the envelope here in the car. It was tough, feeling it burn against the flesh of his chest the entire twenty minute trip back to his parents home in Vancouver. But he didn’t stop himself from thinking about the item in his jacket. Did he really want to read it? What would he find when he read the copy of her will? If anything, Jamie was his friend and if she wanted him to see something in private, he would respect her last wish for him.

When his parents mid-twentieth century farmhouse came into view, he released a breath and prepared to disembark, feeling the envelope’s weight growing in his jacket. Inside the house his mother, Emily, met him in the foyer with a warm hug on her tip-toes and a loving smile. Kaidan returned the hug, burying his face into his mother’s neck as he had while growing up. Her scent was familiar and welcome after the emotional day he’d had.

“How did the memorial go, Kaidan?”

He sighed and pulled away, looking down at his mother for a moment before she lead him to the sitting room and plopped him down on the couch. He watched her hurry off to the kitchen then waited until she re-entered the room with two cups of coffee. When she sat down next to him with his cup, he focused on her and accepted the dark bitter liquid.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Kaidan watched Emily give him a knowing smile only a mother could. He ran a hand down his face, mindful of his coffee cup when his fingers went to the top buttons of his jacket and flicked them open before removing the package from Jamie and placing it, unceremoniously on the coffee table before them. “The service… could have been better. Out of all the survivors from the Normandy crash, I was the only one who stood up and spoke. I think Anderson might have tried to get the others to speak, but no one stood. Or it might have been because Jamie took me on almost all of her missions, so Anderson thought I had more insight on her. I tried not to get too emotional, but I don’t think that went so well.”

“Well of course you did. You care about her and have for a while now.”

“As a friend.” He found himself stressing, but the look she gave him made sure he knew that she was fully aware of the truth. That he had just lied to his mother and he had liked Jamie as more than just a friend.

Several minutes went by of silence as they drank from their coffee cups. Kaidan found himself staring into the murky depths of his cup, remembering when Jamie had told him her thoughts about biotics and coffee.

~//~

**~ One week after Eden Prime ~**

“Don’t you ever sleep? Or smile?”

Kaidan watched her look up from the datapad she was reading in surprise as he approached the table in the Mess with a cup of steaming hot coffee in his hands. He watched her eyes do a once over of his person, likely taking in all the details about him that moment. She likely knew, just by looking once, that he had taken a shower and shaved, and that he was ready for the day. He just needed his coffee. Jamie was that good.

When Kaidan had asked her about her studying gaze the first time he caught her doing her scan, she’d said that being able to do quick scans of people often showed signs of their attentions like body language or bulging pockets with hidden weapon before the other person could hide them. According to Jamie, it had been essential for survival on the streets. She had also used it to her advantage in the Alliance and while she was going through the N7 program. When she got to his BDUs, he noticed a slight darkening of the skin on her cheeks as they took on a pink color.

He, in turn, did the same. Jamie’s chin-length mahogany hair was straight as a pin normally, but this morning it was tousled as if she was constantly running her fingers through it or she had just woken up. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the idea of her looking tousled when first waking up after spending a long night with her in her cabin. The moment he thought that, he kicked himself. Just having thoughts like that was borderline fraternization in his eyes.

Kaidan shook his head and continued. Dark circles seemed to have taken residence under her amazing dark blue eyes. Her soft cheeks were pale under their flush. Normally, her skin had a healthy golden glow from working outside while training, but this morning it was different. Not even her heart-shaped lips had much color.

It made him wonder if she was feeling well, or perhaps it was the beacon tormenting her again. When he lifted a leg to sit on the bench across from her, she quickly cast her gaze up to his face.

“Good morning to you, too, Kaidan. How did you sleep?”

“As well as can be expected in a pod, I suppose. You?” Jamie simply shook her head at him and looked back at the datapad before her. Kaidan looked at her with concern. “That bad, huh? Still having nightmares from the beacon?”

“Nearly every night, it feels like. But I suppose that it’s a change from being about Torfan.”

He watched her gaze become unfocused as her thoughts went back to that tragic event. She had told him what had happened at Torfan - her side of the story, which was quite different from what was aired on the extranet newscasts - and he hadn’t judged her. He had believed her when she had told him that she hadn’t willingly sacrificed her unit on the blighted moon. That she had been consumed with grief at the loss of her unit at Batarian hands and thus had not accepted the surrender of those who had attacked first.

From what he had seen and what Jamie had told him when he found her in the mess at 0500, she still had nightmares of watching her comrades in arms fall to the four-eyed aliens. She had spent months training her unit, so proud she had been at having her first command. Then to have them just taken away and leave her as the only survivor? Kaidan wasn’t sure if he would have come out as anything less than a wreck.

Kaidan sawed his cup between his hands on the table for several minutes, taking occasional sips, before he broke the silence. “So, you never answered my questions, Shepard.”

“Hmm?” Jamie frowned and shook her head and Kaidan wondered what was going through her head to bring on that look of upset.

He looked on her with continued concern. Something was on her mind and he wanted to help. But maybe he couldn’t help her how she needed. Perhaps he should call Liara to console the Commander. They had been spending a lot of time together.

A small seed of jealousy tried to bloom in his breast at the thought. He really enjoyed being around Shepard, was feeling himself become more and more attached to her, and was always looking forward to the next time she came by for a debriefing. But if she preferred Liara, he didn’t want to get in the way. Regardless how he felt about his Commander.

Kaidan chuckled. “I asked if you ever slept or smiled, Shepard.”

“I sleep!” She said defensively, leaning forward to give him her full attention. “And as for smiling, I hardly ever have reasons to! Surely you have seen me smile at least once?”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow. He knew that, in order to maintain her reputation of being a mean hardass, she had to frown and scowl; particularly in public. However, that didn’t mean he didn’t try to squeeze one out of her every chance he got on the ship. He was getting close, however. He felt it in his gut that he was on the cusp of making her truly smile. If that should happen, he’d likely be a goner.

He watched as she absently brought her cup up to her lips as she went back to her datapad, looking confused when nothing came as she tipped the cup to her lips. When she frowned and put the cup back down to go back to her datapad, Kaidan said, “Would you like some more coffee, Shepard?”

Jamie dragged her eyes from whatever she was reading to look from him, to her cup, then back to him. She shrugged with indifference. “Sure, but not too much sugar. I can’t go to a café because they load their coffee up on too much sugar and it messes with my biotics.”

“How so?”

“Too much sugar causes more energy. More energy burns calories. More burned calories means Biotics don’t last as long in battle as we need to.” She focused on him once more. “Surely you know that, Lieutenant. You went to BAaT and you are, after all, a Sentinel as well as I.”

“Yes, but I was interested in your thoughts as to sugar and coffee. Speaking of which, what about coffee?”

“Coffee makes up for the lack of sugar. The stronger the coffee, the less sugar that should be consumed. Which makes it difficult because of how bitter it is. There are sugar substitutes, particularly on ships, but they don’t taste the same as real sugar.”

Kaidan smiled at her. “Does that mean you have a sweet tooth, Shepard?”

She smirked at him in return. “You could say that. Sweets are sometimes on a girl’s list of basic essentials. Though, interacting with a guy like you definitely makes up for that need, I’d say.”

Now it was his turn to blush. Kaidan scratched his neck at her comment, willing the redness in his cheeks to go down. When it didn’t, Kaidan grabbed her cup and took it back to the coffee pot. He added the same amount of sugar he usually used, half a small package, into the cup then added coffee, grabbing a spoon to mix the two ingredients together. He added more coffee and a small amount of sugar to his own cup and stirred before returning to the table.

He waited while she took a sip. When she paused and looked down, her eyes widening, Kaidan felt a string of concern pulling on him. Had he added too much? It had only been half a packet of sugar. When she looked up at him, all of his sugar concerns vanished.

Kaidan felt nearly blinded by the smile coming from her now. “This is the perfect amount! I usually put too much or too little.” He watched her drink greedily of the cup before holding out the vessel for a refill. “Please?”

Who was he to refuse?

~//~

**~ Present Day ~**

“Kaidan?”

His head snapped up from where he had been staring into the dark depths of his cup, to look at his mother at his side. She was looking back at him with sadness, her hand on his knee and her cup forgotten on the small table in front of them.

“I’m sorry, mom. Were you saying something? I got lost in thought again.”

“I know that look. You were in love with Jamie, weren’t you?”

“Was, feels like I still am and I have a feeling I always will be. But it shouldn’t be more than platonic, mom. She chose Liara and I chose to support her because she was my friend and after everything she had been through, she deserved to be happy. If that happiness wasn’t with me, then so be it.”

“Did you ever tell her how you felt?”

“She knew that she could rely on me with her secrets and that I was her friend.  But there was never time to tell her how I really felt.  Then there was the fraternization regulations and her having deep feelings for Liara. It just never came up.”

“If you had the chance to tell her how much you cared for her, would you have?”

Kaidan couldn’t answer her question.  He didn’t know himself and now, he never would. “It’s no use thinking about it anymore, mom.  She is gone and there’s nothing we can do about it.  It’s just a lost opportunity now.”

With that, he rose from the sofa, grabbed the envelope from the table and strode over to the stairs to go up to his old room that had been converted into a spare bedroom, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

The walls were still decorated with various knick-knacks and posters from his childhood. His small bed had been replaced with a larger one and for that he was glad. Kaidan sat on the side of his bed and slumped over his knees, trying to calm himself and his riotous emotions. He wanted to cry, felt the need bubbling deep in his heart, in his soul. The pain of her loss tearing him to shreds from the inside out. Keeping up appearances at the memorial and then in front of his mother was extremely draining.

Jamie was lost to him forever over Alchera and there was nothing he could do. They hadn’t even been able to find her body, in whatever state it had been after entering the atmosphere of the frozen ball they had been attacked over.

After several minutes, he rubbed his dry eyes and straightened his back to maneuver  himself until he was leaning against the headboard of the bed with his legs stretched out before him on top of a meticulously organized comforter. His gaze was drawn, once again, to the envelope in his hands. What could she possibly have left for him? Was he the only one? What had caused her to change her Will at such short notice? Perhaps he should open it in her lawyer’s presence.

Kaidan looked at the clock that was still on his nightstand. It was 1945 and well past normal closing hours for a Saturday and really, he just wanted to get past this whole day.

He pinched the metal tabs holding the envelopes flap down and lifted it until it revealed the two datapads that Mr. Todd had mentioned. Kaidan pulled out both pieces of tech and turned the first one on.  It was the copy of her Will. He turned off the device and focused on the second pad.  When he turned it on, there was only one file on it with a ‘play’ button flashing in its center. Kaidan got comfortable on the bed, preparing himself for whatever message Jamie had left for him. His gloved index finger hovered over the screen as if unsure. He couldn’t imagine what Jamie would have left in a message for him the night before Alchera. He was still surprised that she hadn’t left anything with her attorney for Liara.

With a heavy gulp, Kaidan pressed his finger to the play button and settled in to listen. He was surprised that it was a video message instead of a voice recording as he looked over her features.  Tired blue eyes, messy mahogany hair, entirely unkempt in the state she was in during the recording. It must have been the night cycle on the Normandy when she made this because she was in an Alliance-issued tank and sweats. When he looked carefully, he could barely make out her bed in the shadowed background. He heard her release a heavy sigh before she began, looking straight into the camera above the screen.

_ ’ Kaidan, _

__ __ _ ‘I’ve never been one for pretty words or false proclamations - you know this. But as we fly towards the Amada System, I was awoken suddenly from a dream with foreboding in my heart and the overwhelming urge to leave my thoughts and feelings in this message for you to listen to in the future, because I might never say them to you aloud.’  _ A serene smile formed on Kaidan’s lips at the almost sheepish look on hers.  He ran a finger over the side of her face, not touching the screen, as she continued.  This time more serious.

__ __ _ ‘First and foremost: I want it known that, while I do care for Liara deeply - more deeply than I thought I could, those feelings pale in comparison to what I feel for you. I’ve never kept it a secret from you that I desired you both, but when I allowed myself to think of the future one night while we were tracking down Cerberus before heading to Virmire, it was you I saw at my side as both a lover and a partner. Not Liara. I feel ashamed for leading her on;  It wasn’t my intention and I will never be able to apologize to her enough for it. _

__ __ Jamie sighed and rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. It was several moments before she continued.  _ ‘I don’t know what these feelings i have for you are; Love is still an uncharted planet to me. It doesn’t feel like what I feel for John and Mary, or for Melina. It feels… more. I realized that after Virmire, when I chose you over Ash. The thought that I might have lost you didn’t sit right. I agonized over losing Ashley and would have saved both of you if I could, but the thought of you not being by my side in any capacity… I can’t think about it. Then, when you started keeping me at a distance, it hurt more than I had anticipated but I pushed it down and away, telling myself it was for the best. Fraternization regulations are there for a reason, after all. _

__ _ ‘The night before we arrived on Ilos, Liara came to my cabin to share, what could have been, our last night alive before we went into the unknown. But I turned her away citing that I had to think about the war with Saren, that it hadn’t been the right time. That hadn’t been a lie, but in my heart, the thought of lying with Liara at that moment left a hollow feeling in me. Another feeling I wasn’t familiar with. _

Jamie’s gaze became intense as she stared harder at the camera, and a pleading look took over her gaze. ‘ _Kaidan, I just want you to know that serving with you has been an honor and a privilege. You are one of the most powerful human biotics I have ever come in contact with and anyone should feel lucky to work with you. You have a strong moral compass that would lead those under your command the right way for the years to come. You are an amazing person and I have felt nothing but pleasure at being able to call you my friend. Please, I beg of you, never change. This galaxy needs someone like you. Not me._

__ She chuckled without mirth and looked to the side at nothing. ‘ _ Maybe one day I will get up the courage to tell you all of this in person. I mean, you are sleeping in your pod just one floor down from me after all. Through everything I’ve thrown myself into without batting an eyelash, telling a man that she cares about him should be easy as can be for me. But you aren’t a normal man to me.  You’re more… you’re the most… You’re…’  _ She shook her head, causing her hair to frame her face becomingly as if telling herself not to continue.  _ ‘But with my luck in recent years, I have a feeling said luck may be running out. _

__ _ ‘If you are watching this message, it means that my luck has finally run out, so I have just one request: Please watch over and care for Melina as if she were your own. I don’t want her to end up with a past like mine. _

__ _ ‘Forever yours, _

__

__ _ ‘Jamie ~ ‘ _

The pad was shaking and blurry by the time he finished watching her message, ending with her reaching up to touch the stop button on the screen. She had cared for him and he had just pushed her away? Had there been other times she had tried to give him hits of her feelings and he was so self absorbed in his hurt that he didn’t see it? Just went about business as usual, backing up his commander and friend.

Her voice echoed through his mind. Hearing her say ‘ forever yours’ chipped away at his demeanor more and more. Kaidan watched the message twice more to ensure he had heard her right and to make sure he didn’t miss any details she might have left hidden. 

As he sat there on the bed, the datapad in his hands on his laps, thinking about Jamie, ‘what-if’s began floating through his thoughts. Kaidan quickly brushed them away so he could focus on the last part of her message. “Please watch over and care for Melina as if she were your own. What does that mean, exactly?” Oh, but he had an inkling and a question regarding her sanity came to mind.

Kaidan turned to the datapad with Jamie’s Will and scanned the content intently until he found his name and felt his jaw drop.

“‘Primary-benefactor of 60% of total earned wealth from bank interest and investments’? No way, this can’t be right. ‘Sole-custody of Melina Shepard’? Is she crazy?” Kaidan ran his hand through his hair as he re-read the portion of her Will with his name.

“Who’s crazy, dear?”

He looked up to see his mother in his doorway with a tray of food in her hands. “Commander Shepard.” he replied, shaking the datapad in his hand. “Much to my surprise, she left me a substantial amount of credits, a few items and knick-knacks, and…” He paused, still in complete disbelief that Jamie would ask  _ him _ to do this for her. “She asks that I be her daughter’s sole guardian.”

~//~


	2. Painful Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loss is a terrible thing and letting the lost rest can be one of the hardest tasks in your life, especially if they are a loved one. The difficulty increased whether they simply leave or they are taken from you by fate. It becomes particularly difficult when everything reminds you of the person that is no longer around. Don't let anyone tell you it's not okay to cry because keeping emotions pent up can be harmful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: More possible angst and slightly shorter chapter than normal (for me).
> 
> Darn, I tried to update this story yesterday as well, but I just ran out of time because I was so busy writing/editing chapter 4 for this fic! I hope you are all enjoying this as much as I am. Just so that you aren’t confused with this chapter, the “# days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy” is something I’ve added in this chapter to express the passage of time and how sometimes people who experience loss feel the need to live from day to day. I also wanted to explore the two years that Kaidan went through after Jamie died and the various things that he and Melina could get into trouble with. 
> 
> Enjoy!~

Your Smile - Chapter 2 - Memories

**_~ Two hours from Feros~_ **

Kaidan walked up to the door leading to Shepard’s quarters on the CIC deck. He and Shepard had been talking and flirting back and forth for weeks now as they traveled across the galaxy, and Kaidan finally felt up to telling her about Rahna. He felt like she would be understanding, sympathetic. Maybe even nonjudgmental despite her reputation for being ruthless.  So here he was, in front of her door, preparing to press the call button to request entrance.

‘ _ How did I let things get this far? _ ’ He thought to himself.  _ ‘I can’t stop thinking about my commanding officer. If she is as interested in me as she seems, we’ll get kicked out of the service for sure if we act on our flirting while on the mission.  But the deeper into this mess with the Council and Saren we get, the less and less I feel like caring. I want her to know more about me so that, in turn, she will let me know more about her. I just have to make the first move.’ _

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Kaidan pressed the button to open Shepard’s door and Kaidan was glad for it’s nearly inaudible movements.  It was dark inside except for a glow coming from the right side of the room, causing Kaidan’s eyes to need to adjust to the change in light levels. He’d been inside her quarters before when he had turned in mission reports from various planets they had visited or just to talk in between shifts. 

Every time before, just like now, her quarters were immaculately clean and tidy, just as they had been trained to do in basic. Most officers that he had served with in the past, however, had taken to decorating their quarters to a point with a picture here and there. Not Jamie. The Captain’s quarters were just as Anderson had left it months ago and Kaidan couldn’t help but wonder why. No picture of friends or places decorated the flat spaces.

‘ _ Soldier through and through.’ _ He thought to himself with a smile as he continued to scan the darkened room. It was getting late in the night cycle, so when his eyes landed on Shepard at her desk, it was to find her in her Alliance-issued dark blue tank top and sweats with the Alliance logo on the lower right side of her top and upper right side of her sweats, obviously ready for bed. Kaidan thought she might be working still, finishing up a report before lights out, but he could hear her talking to the screen in hushed tones with her legs crossed and arms propping her up as she leaned closer to the person she was having a conversation with. 

For a moment, Kaidan she might be talking to a lover, as close to the screen as she was.  A shot of jealousy coursed through him unbidden and caught him off guard. He shook off the emotion knowing it was silly and unfounded until he discovered with whom she was conversing with. Kaidan moved closer to slowly bring his presence to her attention without intentionally listening to the conversation. However, when he saw that she was talking to a girl that couldn’t be much older than ten, his attention was drawn beyond his control. 

Kaidan felt his eyes go wide and had to seal his lips tight to hold in a gasp when he moved more to the side and saw Shepard give the child on the screen an honest-to-God smile. Even from her profile, he saw how it changed her entire face. She looked less tired and forlorn, her skin took on a healthy glow, even in the darkness, and her blue eyes were shining and bright;  She looked more happy than he had seen her, even when they had spent time talking. Gone was the stress of the day that seemed permanently etched on her features from this planet needing saved or that dignitary needing a favor.  If he thought her beautiful before, it was nothing compared to now. He was truly and completely enchanted. If he ever heard her laugh out loud, instead of chuckling, he’d truly be lost.

“Who’s that man behind you?”

“What man, sweetheart?” Kaidan distantly heard Shepard ask the child before she turned in her seat using her arms to swivel around, to follow her pointed finger. Her left arm caught his attention as she turned, when he saw three tattoos on the inside of her left forearm near her elbow. When she faced him, Kaidan saw that she had another tattoo on the inside of her right wrist as well. 

Shepard had gotten the Alliance and Spectre emblems, separated by the N7 logo, tattooed on her skin as a badge of pride for her various levels of accomplishment. She must have gotten them added one at a time because the Alliance emblem was closest to the crook of her elbow, then the N7 logo, finally the Spectre symbol under the other two. On the right side was a stylized compass with writing above and below, but what was written was lost on him in the darkness.

Kaidan shook his head.  None of that was important right now.  What was important was that the girl was pointing at him - he’d been caught watching them have a private conversation. Kaidan felt his cheeks heat as he started backing away, wanting to curse under his breath at his intrusion - he should have left when he saw that Shepard was busy - but stopped when Shepard’s smile fell the moment she realized who had entered her demesne. “Kaidan? I didn’t hear you come in. Do you need something?”

Right as he was about to answer, the face of the girl on the screen lit up in excitement and she clapped her hands. “Is that  _ the _ Kaidan, mama?  The one you have talked to grandma and grandpa about during your vidcalls?”

A becoming flush rapidly infused Shepard’s cheeks when the young girl called her out. Then Kaidan felt everything inside him freeze as her words echoed about his mind. ‘ _ Mama?  Wait, wait, wait. Why was this child calling Shepard ‘mama’, and who had Shepard been talking to about him?’  _ It was in that moment that Kaidan realized just how little Shepard had revealed about her personal life before the Alliance, deflecting the questions when he asked them.  He hadn’t realized it before because he had simply been enjoying talking to her about anything and everything. Was he about to find out one of her secrets?

“Melina, isn’t it past your bedtime?” Shepard asked the young girl, never taking her eyes off of Kaidan.  She had taken on a deer-in-the-headlights stance - no moving muscles, her eyes wide, fierce swallowing.  She was acting as if she got caught in some sordid act.

“No ma’am.  It’s just after lunch time and I already ate.” Melina sat quietly before the screen, a Cheshire grin on her lips as she watched the silent interaction between the two adults.

Shepard seemed to shake herself from her surprise.  She frowned when she looked over her shoulder at the child before looking back at him as if making a decision before pushing herself back slightly and lowering her feet to the ground. When she waved him closer, Kaidan walked over on stiff legs.  He couldn’t have heard her right. Maybe the girl was from a colony, from Torfan, that Shepard had befriended in the past and ‘mama’ meant something different on the colony than it did on Earth.

“Melina, I’d like you to meet my friend Kaidan.”  Melina waved at him with a toothy smile. “Kaidan?  I’d like you to meet Melina Shepard.  My daughter.”

He hadn’t been wrong after all. 

“Your… daughter?”  Kaidan felt the question escape his lips before he could stop it, instantly feeling dense because she had no reason to lie to him about something like this. Shepard nodded and waited patiently while he wrapped his head around the news. Shepard took on her ‘commander’ appearance: spine straight, arms crossed over her chest and a look on her face that dared him to challenge her. It only took a moment for him to go from surprise to acceptance to curiosity.  He turned to Melina on the screen.  “Hello Melina, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The younger girl giggled but smiled easily. “Do you love my mama, Lieutenant Alenko?” Kaidan felt his jaw drop at her question and Shepard spun around in her stool to face the screen again.

“Aaaand this call is over.  I love you, sweetheart, but I have to go.  I will talk to you when we get done with business on Feros, okay?”

“Okay, mama.  I love you!”

Shepard cut the feed then turned to Kaidan, shoulders back and chin raised as if preparing for a reprimand he had no authority to give. When he recovered from the shock of the child’s question, Kaidan chuckled, a smirk on his lips following and she seemed to relax into a leery form, as if she wasn’t sure if he was being sincere or not. 

“Kaidan?”

“Yeah, Shepard?”

When he didn’t follow up with more questions, she seemed to relax even further in her chair, her stiff appearance going lax. Shepard motioned to the desk next to her indicating he should sit.  He did and crossed his arms as he looked at her. Kaidan watched Jamie pull her knees up against her chest to rest her chin on them. “I’m going to be honest with you, Kaidan. I’m surprised you don’t have questions.”

“I do have questions.”

“Well?  You might as well ask since you’re here.”

“Why would I?”

“Because those who find out about Lina, however small the number is, always do. They usually do the ‘WhoWhatWhenWhereHowWhy’s.”

Kaidan felt his flush grow.  Oh, he had questions, but she was his CO and felt it would be disrespectful if he just flat out asked about her personal affairs without her offering first. He shrugged. “I figured it would come up in conversation eventually - I know there are some things that I haven’t told you about my past. Besides, though we have been spending a lot of time together and I feel like I can talk to you, I respect you too much to be overbearing and nosey about your personal affairs. But if you wanted to talk about it, I’d be all ears, Shepard. Just like you have been for me.”

He heard her release a breath and wondered why she had been holding it in. When she gave him a smile that was just a fraction of the one she gave her daughter, he felt his heart pick up a slightly faster beat. “Okay. What I’m about to tell you is privileged information.  Only a couple people other than her grandparents know about her. 

‘As I told you before, when I was twelve and after spending most of my life up until then surviving with other urchins on the street, I was taken in by the Reds.  The initiation was brutal… terrifying… bloody… but even then, I wanted a better life and the Reds appeared to be my only option at the time. Living on the streets most of my life made me too wild for most establishments for kids like me, which was what caught the Reds’ attention. They taught me how to control my biotics, how to repair vehicles, amongst other more questionable skills. Flash forward three years, shortly after I turned fifteen, I dueled the leader of the cell I was a part of in Surrey…”

“England?”

Jamie shook her head.  “British Columbia.”

“That’s just south of where I grew up after my parents moved from Singapore.”

She nodded.  “I read that in your file.  I wish I could have seen English Bay when I was on Earth.” Jamie blinked when she noticed how wistful she sounded before shaking her head.

Kaidan couldn’t help but wonder if she got to see many of the things on Earth that others took for granted. Sure, she had been in Rio de Janeiro for her N7 training, but did she get to go out often?  See the town? Sample the nightlife? Maybe, if they got some shore leave after defeating Saren, she’d be willing to go with him to Earth so he could show her English Bay, or the Grand Canyon, the Great Pyramids or even the Mariana Trench and visit the resort down there.  

Kaidan kicked himself at the latter, because it was followed by a thread of joy at the idea of being alone with her somewhere that wasn’t a spaceship.  That wasn’t likely to happen because of the lower deck rumors of she and Liara spending a lot of time together as of late as well.  While she seemed to be interested in him, Kaidan wasn’t interested in sharing, so if Liara was the one Jamie wanted to be with, then so be it.

“Where was I?”

Kaidan smiled.  He hadn’t been the only one to get distracted.  “You took over a Reds cell in Surrey at fifteen.”

“Oh yeah.  After I took command, it became a very successful cell without need for the monetary income that the other cells resorted to. The leader of the Reds, Raymond Gills, hadn’t seemed to mind since my cell was bringing in large sums of credits to him. Everyone under me was loyal to a fault.  A couple years later, I threw a party because why not?  I was seventeen, had a successful job, had my own place and wanted to party.  So, my crew came to the little apartment I’d managed to rent, bringing friends from other cells with them.  It was fun - lots of good booze and even better music.  I think there had also been drugs, but that night is still a little fuzzy, even so many years later.

“When I woke up in the morning, I was naked in my bed with an equally naked bear of a man, and I mean that quite literally, that I’d never met before in my life.  After I kicked everyone out minutes later, everything went back to normal.  Or so I thought.

“When I started feeling constantly dizzy and nauseous, but oddly craving pickled zucchini, a few weeks later, I felt dread, fear, uncertainty.  I lead a structured and organized group of mercenaries and soldiers looking for purpose outside the military life.  I had plans for my future and suddenly there was a wrench in the gears I had carefully laid for a more promising future.

“A month later, I was walking the streets of Surry, wondering - planning - what to do with the human growing inside me. The doctor I saw said that, though I had led an active sex life, I had conceived with that stranger the night of the party, so I was almost through my first trimester. I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going, as deep in thought as I was, so I failed to see the elderly couple in front of me.  I remember my first thoughts being, after worrying for my child, that the man who’s back I ran into had to have been in a military at some point.  His reflexes were impressive because he managed to turn and grab my arm in a split second as I started to fall.

“Later, the man, told me that he thought I was a careless pickpocket until he saw the condition I was in, recognizing the signs from when he had watched his wife go through half a dozen pregnancies.” Jamie chuckled at the memory and Kaidan couldn’t help but reciprocate. “John was the first person to make me laugh in a very long time, if memory serves.”

“What happened next?”  He encouraged her to continue, scooting closer to her on her desk, feeling her heat and relishing in it, in her closeness.  She, in turn, pulled her chair closer to him with a half smile.  Kaidan swore he could almost feel an electrical discharge go off between them from their biotics reacting. A warm, tingling sensation flowed over his skin, raising the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck and it was far from unpleasant. This close, he noted that she smelled like cinnamon and apple, like those grown in the orchard his parents owned in the B.C interior.  Kaidan felt his mouth water as the scent infused his senses until he caught a sharp whiff of eezo that lay beneath, but not finding it completely unpleasant.

“Well, loving and caring people that they are, John and his wife, Mary, reacted to the sight of a thin, pregnant teenager. It must have called out to something in them to help, because after they treated me to lunch, they got to know me better.  Or at least what I chose to tell them.  I think John knew there was more but, like you, they never asked out of respect.  By the end of the meal, they had managed to convince me to stay with them.  At least until my child was born.

“I insisted on supporting myself while living with them, so they helped me get a good desk job that would allow me to pay them rent.  When I told Gills  that I was leaving, he was pissed.  I had to fight my way out of that one.”  Kaidan’s eyes went wide when she chuckled at that.  Pregnant and getting into fights - it seemed too dangerous in his opinion, but he understood Jamie had probably had felt that she hadn’t had much choice, so he stayed quiet.

“Things were great after that.  I finally had a family, one that cared about me as more than a means to get paid and things were finally looking up.  They were the ones to teach me about familial love since softer emotions were seen as a weakness in the Tenth Street Reds.  John and Mary explained parental love when Melina was born.

“A few months after Melina came into my life, my doctor gave me the go ahead to join the Alliance since I was over eighteen.  It was a tough decision to make, leaving my child with other people so soon after birth, but it felt right in my gut.  I wanted to uplift myself from where I had begun and this seemed the best way to do it. On top of that, I wanted to make sure that my daughter could grow up with a loving family that provided for her and supported her.

“John and Mary were very supportive and have been a miracle in my life in every sense of the word over the last ten years.  Ever since I joined the Alliance, they have given Melina a loving home, helped her with school, taught her things when I couldn’t.  Up until joining the Normandy, every time I got shore leave, I’d return to Earth to spend time with them.  They are helping me give her a life I never had.”

~//~

**_~ 5 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

Kaidan remembered feeling relieved when Jamie had been accepting and nonjudgmental when he told her about Rahna and his BAaT days after she told him about her daughter, as he lay on his bed in his apartment on the Citadel, looking at the gray ceiling above. As soon as his transport had landed, after leaving his parents house, he had gone straight to his home and changed out of his dress blues and into a t-shirt that said ‘My Biotics will Lift your spirits.’ - a birthday gift from Joker - and a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips.  They used to fit better, but since the Normandy’s untimely demise, most of his civies were getting too big for him.

He sighed, managed to push himself into a sitting position on his large bed and looked around, seeing high ceilings of gray and walls of white with darker gray curtains over the tall windows overlooking the Wards. His bed was black and white and his bathroom was shades of black and gray.  For being near such a colorful part of the Citadel, his personal living space was very monochromatic. Or maybe it was because of the emotions, the feeling of despair and guilt, flowing through his soul that was coloring his world as such. There was no pictures, no little knick-knacks or mementos scattered about that would make this space a home.  He wasn’t used to being in his apartment anymore after spending over a year on the Normandy chasing Saren then defeating him and Sovereign on the Citadel only a few short weeks ago.  But since that day over Alchera, he had been spending more and more time here, staring into space, reliving memories of Jamie. He felt borderline pathetic, but it couldn’t be helped.  

Kaidan loved Jamie, in life and death.  He loved everything about her. Not only was she a beauty beyond compare, everything from her looks to her biotics pulling at him, but she was full of light and life. He loved the good parts of her life and most of the bad. The way she stood as a vanguard for those who couldn’t help themselves and her  _ extreme  _ dislike and impatience for politicians.  He admired her dedication to the Alliance and her willingness to sacrifice for the organization, her camaraderie with those she called friends and the fierce protectiveness of them, even her ruthlessness and harshness, though it only went skin deep most times. Some things she had done had left a bad taste in his mouth, but he knew she had done it for a reason and he had gone along with it, trusting her judgment absolutely. She knew how to get the job done, willing to take the consequences on her own conscience so that others didn’t have to be burdened by it.

Another sigh escaped him and he hefted himself off the bed to walk barefoot into the main room of his one bedroom, one bathroom apartment.  He looked around here as well.  It wasn’t as sparse - his parents had helped him move in and decorate when he had moved from the Arcturus station years ago. He had an L-shaped sectional with a coffee table facing a large screen that had access to the extranet and a large, deep-set desk with computer behind it in his living room. The open floor plan and even larger windows than those in his bedroom, let light into the space for two thirds of the day cycle, reducing his power bill because he rarely needed to use the lights. The lack of color from his bedroom was the same here. A six-foot angular table in black was surrounded by six chairs under a modern lamp across from a stainless steel kitchen with an island made of dark wood and quartz. 

Kaidan used to cook in that kitchen whenever he was on shore leave or in between assignments, but the will to do so had waned in recent weeks. 

He scanned the room again for no particular reason and felt his eyes catch on a picture frame that he had haphazardly left on the armrest of his sofa. He moved over to the sofa and picked the holo up. It was a candid picture of Jamie as she smiled at something one of their companions had said while they were having a couple of days shore leave on the Citadel before they received their next assignment. He remembered thinking it odd that she wasn’t being more cozy with Liara, but didn’t ask because it wasn’t his place. 

Though months had passed since the picture had been taken, the rumor that Liara had spent the night in Jamie’s was still fresh in his memory. The pain of it even more so. He had started inadvertently begun pushing Jamie away, thinking he was just stepping out of the way so she could be with the Asari doctor rather than him.  But after the postmortem message she’d left him, he felt twice the fool. He looked back to the holo in his hand.

There was jubilation in her eyes for the first time in a long time after they saved the Citadel and got Anderson on the Council - the position gifted to the human race as a way of saying thanks for saving them at the cost of innumerable human lives. Udina had been pissed that Shepard hadn’t chosen him, but she simply spat at his feet, told him that that was how she felt about him and left after giving him the finger. Most of the crew thought it had been hilarious and that she had made the right choice choosing Anderson, leading to the picture in his hand as they celebrated at Flux.

She had been so happy that day, finally unafraid to show her smile to all who could see. Kaidan felt tears welling in his eyes as he stared at the picture, trailing a finger down Jamie’s cheek in the picture, seeing the scar through the right side of her upper lip. Even in the holo, they looked as soft and sweet as they truly had been, even when she would spat profanities at their enemies that would make Nun’s cross their hearts and run in the opposite direction.

Kaidan clenched the hand that held the frame, feeling his biotics crackle across his skin from pent up emotion. So much wasted time. After he had met Melina before Feros, he had spoken of Rahna and how she had broken his heart. Jamie had moved from her chair to sit next to him on her desk, the length of one of their legs touching each others. During his story, Jamie turned the upper part of her body towards him and began running her fingers over his bare forearm.  He knew she was doing it to comfort him, while it was emotionally comforting, her warm light touches had given him gooseflesh in the best way along with periodic static shock from their biotics reacting to the other. 

When he had finished his story and she hadn’t replied right away to one of his questions, he’d turned to face her. Her face had been closer than he’d expected, as deep in his storytelling as he had been, because when he’d turned to face her, their faces had been close enough to almost touch. 

Kaidan had been the one to react first, starting to pull away with an apology on his lips when Jamie reached up to cup his cheeks and closed the short distance between them to meet in a heated kiss, effectively silencing him.

Completely caught off guard, Kaidan had froze for a moment before the realization of what had been happening settled in.  Jamie was kissing him; something he had wondered what it would be like almost since the moment he’d first saw her as everyone milled around the Normandy docking bay on Arcturus. A moment later, Kaidan was leaning into her lips, tasting her sweetness and savoring it. They were warm and lush, completely opposite the façade that she put on for most of the crew and the rest of the galactic community. He had reveled in her contradiction, finding it fascinating that she had been able to keep both so separate.

He had felt her breath hitch when he had joined in the meeting of their lips and he’d thought he had heard her moan when he had pressed his tongue to the seam of her lips.  She’d opened for him eagerly as her arms moved from his face to wrap around his neck and his hands went to wrap around her small waist to pull her closer.  She maneuvered around until her legs were wrapped around his waist, never severing their connection and Kaidan had felt himself moan. Jamie had been near scalding between her legs as she straddled his waist and his own body had reacted in kind, needing hers like he needed air.  Never had he experienced such a reaction to a woman before and he hadn’t since that night.

Kaidan cursed himself now as he sat on his couch, near tears.  That had been their first and last kiss. Jamie had tried to convince him to take her to bed, and he had been more than willing to fulfill her request, a little voice in the back of his head had told him to slow down, with a louder voice screaming “FRATERNIZATION!” at the front. He’d cared deeply for her and hadn’t wanted to risk their careers, though that will had been weakening by the second. What if he had ignored his conscience? Would he have had more time with her? Would she have chosen him over Liara?

He thought back to the message she had left him that now lay on his nightstand.  She and Liara hadn’t spent the night together before Ilos like the whole crew thought. She hadn’t chosen Liara over him and had cared for him almost as much as he had for her.  They had lost so much fucking time, letting it slip through his fingers like sand because he was a soldier through and through.

With a clatter on the floor, Kaidan let the holo fall to the ground and dropped his head into his upturned hands as hot tears wet his palms and slipped through his fingers. 

~//~


	3. Snapshots of time spent healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, just going from day to day is the only way you can get past and thrive after the death of a loved one. Having the daughter of said loved one can help heal as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it’s not really known exactly when the Normandy was destroyed, in my head, it happened early to mid October 2183, with their original mission beginning in January. Also, this was teary for me to write then edit. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Your Smile Chapter 3 - Snapshots of Time Spent Healing.

 

**_~ 65 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“Mel, I’ve been thinking. With this promotion comes a higher income, which means that I can get us a larger place to live.  What do you think about that? You could have your own room instead of sleeping in mine while I bunk on the couch?”

 

Melina looked up from her plate of food as they ate dinner and smiled.  “Could I have a terminal, too?”

 

Kaidan chuckled and picked up his plate to take to the sink.  “You’re a smart kid for being ten, so if you think you can be responsible about it, then I will definitely think about it. We need to get you an omni tool first.”  He smiled when her eyes lit up.  She had been asking for one often over the last few weeks ever since one of her friends from the Alliance school on the Citadel got one from her parents. Kaidan walked over to where she still sat at the table and reached into his pocket, feeling the bracelet-like piece of tech in his fingers and pulled it out to present it to her.

 

A look of pure joy engulfed her features as she held out her hand to receive the gift. Earlier in the day when he had purchased the ‘tool designed for younger people just learning to use their own, he had taken the time to program all the important contacts she might need: his ‘tool and his office terminal code, John and Mary’s ‘tools and terminal codes, and the code to the terminal in the living room.  That way, if ever she needed to contact him, she could.

 

“Can I put games on it?”

 

Kaidan nodded.  “And music, if you want. We can even look into getting you a pair of earbuds for you to use.”

 

If possible, her smile grew in size and radiance and a warm feeling of success flowed through him, brightening the shadowy corners of his heart. Melina quickly pushed away from the table to stand, causing the table and dishes on the top to rattle in her hurry, then turned to him and wrapped her short arms around his torso.

 

“Thank you, Commander!”

 

He returned her embrace and placed a kiss on top of her head. “You’re welcome, Mel.  Now, finish your dinner so we can start looking on the extranet for an apartment.”

 

He really was starting to enjoy being a father-figure.

 

~//~

 

**_~82 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“Welcome home, Commander!”

 

Kaidan sluggishly looked up from where he stood near the door after placing his bag, keys and coat unceremoniously on the table next to the door. Normally he would have been more careful in placing the items on the surface, but when he felt like death warmed over, he lost the will to care. When his eyes finally landed on Melina, he saw her smile fall; he must look as bad as he feels.

 

“Are you alright, sir?” Melina followed him to the kitchen table and stood beside him when he sat heavily on the wood seat. He felt her small, cool hand go automatically to his forehead and felt like chuckling.  She had been watching those Asari hospital dramas again. If she wanted to be a medical doctor, he was going to have to start saving his credits to help her through school. He focused on her again when he heard her gasp. “You have a fever!  You should be in bed, Commander.”

 

“Is that your official diagnosis, Doctor Shepard?”

 

Melina stood back and fisted her hands on her hips before looking her over, not sure what she was searching for. Moments later, she crossed her arms and focused on him. “What else is the matter?”

 

“Nausea, hands are tingling, headaches, tired, dizzy...”

 

She held up her hand to stop his listing of ailments and nodded knowingly because he had exhibited the same symptoms before, but it had been over two months since the last time. “You haven’t been dis… discharging your biotics, have you? How did you handle your migraine at work?”

 

“Practice.”  She frowned at his attempt at humor.

 

“You should go lie down, Commander.” She emphasised her order by pointing to the door of the only bedroom. “I can sleep on the couch tonight.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

She nodded. “I may be ten, but I can’t take care of myself completely yet. I’m dependant on you, you know.”

 

The serious expression on her face managed to bring out a weak chuckle before he stood and wobbled over to the door to his old room, knowing it so well he could maneuver around it in the dark. At the side of his bed, he turned towards her and sat, seeing her standing in the doorway. “You should relax, sir.  I’ll make you something and bring you medicine to help.”

 

When she left, Kaidan began disrobing but could hear her speaking beyond the door. “Doctor Chakwas? Hi, it’s me, Melina. Yeah, the Commander forgot again. He was doing so good!... Yes ma’am, he seemed okay this morning. Fever, nausea, headache and tingling hands. Yes ma’am...Yes ma’am. Okay.  Thank you, Doctor Chakwas! Yes ma’am!”

 

_ Such an odd conversation. _ Kaidan laid down on his bed with a groan, but reveled in the cool sheets a moment before he started shivering. Five minutes later, Melina returned with a tray containing crackers, a bowl of soup, a glass of water, the bottle that contained his headache medicine, and a metal rod with chargers on the end that he could use to discharge his biotics into that would then safely disperse the built up energy. 

 

Out of habit, when she opened the door to enter, she used one hand to turn on the light to see.  Kaidan instantly flinched and closed his lids against it, feeling pain spike in his temples and around his amp.  He hissed and Melina nearly dropped the tray in her hands in her hurry to turn the light back off with a murmured ‘sorry’.

 

“Did the doc give you good advice? Will I need to start saving to put you through medical school on Thessia?” 

 

“Yup, I ship out tomorrow.” Melina smirked as she opened the medication bottle, with some difficulty, and shook out two large, long pills onto his waiting hand and took the glass of water when she handed it to him. He could feel the medicine begin to work as she fussed with the rod after placing the tray on his lap.  When he didn’t immediately tuck into the soup she made, she pointed at the bowl as she continued to try to get the rod to turn on.

 

Kaidan put the tray aside and closed his eyes as he waited for her to finish fumbling with the object, but opened them again a moment later when he heard the familiar hum. 

 

When he grabbed the tool, he felt her gaze on him. “Commander, when you feel better, will you make sure to keep from getting sick again?”

 

He could hear the sadness in her tone.  They’d only been living together for a couple short months, but they had bonded like father and daughter and could understand her worry.  “I promise, Mel.”

 

“Serviceman’s honor?”

 

“Serviceman’s honor.”

 

~//~

 

**_~ 168 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

Kaidan stood from where he had been crouched over a large box in his new office space and wiped his brow.  The last box from the move was finally emptied and he felt accomplishment flow through him.  He laughed to himself at the thought. It’d only taken almost three months to finish the move officially, what with his working for Councilor Anderson and Melina going into year six at her school.  

 

He couldn’t be more proud of her in that aspect.  She was only eleven and should be going into year five, but she not only skipped a grade, she was now looking at taking online courses for year seven and eight - two years ahead of where most of her classmates were. Kaidan couldn’t help but think of how proud Jamie would have been if she had been alive.  He knew that John and Mary were proud and, because of it, had gifted her with a terminal when she told them her news

 

_ Jamie, if you could only see your daughter now. _ He thought to himself before calling for Melina, “Hey Mel!”

 

When she didn’t come after a few moments, he was about to call for her again when he heard the slide of her bedroom door that was next to his, and padded footsteps on the hardwood floor. “Yes, Commander?”

 

Kaidan shook his head with a smile at her continued use of his rank instead of just calling him by his given name. “Guess what?” She came to a stop in front of him with a questioning gaze. “We are officially done moving into our new apartment!”

 

Melina burst out laughing at his excitement and he was glad to see it when she smiled.  Over the last five months she had been living with him, he felt that he hadn’t seen it nearly enough. Kaidan wanted to keep her smiling, so he grabbed her hands and dragged her towards the open space between his office space next to the front door and the living room, where he proceeded to spin around with her and dance.  Melina started giggling and he felt like he was on top of the world.

 

After a while, they were both out of breath and collapsed to the floor where they stood, laying next to each other. As they lay there trying to regulate their breathing, Kaidan turned his head to his charge.  “Want to go to Earth this weekend to celebrate with John and Mary?  You haven’t seen them in almost a month.”

 

Melina nodded furiously.  “Could we visit mom too?  I want to tell her my news about school!”

 

He smiled sadly.  “I can’t see why not. I think she would like that.”

 

~//~

 

**_~ 175 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“Hey mom! Guess what I’ve been doing!”

 

Kaidan stood back next to John and Mary as Melina crouched before the monument dedicated to the Normandy crew and began chatting away to the smooth surface, placing a hand on it as if trying to be closer to her mother.

 

“Our Jamie would be so proud of that little sprout,” Mary commented, her eyes misting with tears as the three of them watched the girl.  Kaidan nodded and crossed his arms over his chest as if that would help to keep his own emotions at bay.

 

“How are things going for you two, really?” John asked after drawing Kaidan away a short distance while Mary drew closer.

 

“It’s been almost six months since the accident, but it’s still hard at times, but we’re okay. The move helped, and I think that’s part of why Melina has been doing so well in school - it’s another way of keeping busy so it doesn’t hurt so much.  For being so young, she is already so much like an adult I can hardly keep up.”

 

The older man nodded in agreement.  “She has changed so much since she lived with us, but she has never been a normal child.  I believe that is in part to who her mother was.”

 

“Is she still helping you with your garden and Mary with her crafts when she stays with you guys while I’m away?”

 

“She has quite the green thumb, I’ll give you that.  Never have my vegetables been so plentiful.”

 

Kaidan chuckled.  “I think that’s because she is so into science.  I’ve joked about sending her to the University of Serrice, if they even accept humans, but I think she is truly interested. When I’ve had headaches or gotten sick, she’s taken care of me like a pro.”

 

“And you’re supporting her, right?”  Kaidan nodded his head. “Good.  If she wants to go to school to become a doctor, then we will help if you need.  Though as sharp as that little firecracker is, she would probably get a full-ride scholarship before she really enjoys her highschool years.”

 

Both men turned back to the women when they heard  Melina finish her story.

 

“Do you think she heard me, grandma?”

 

“Of course, my dear.  She can hear everything you say, at any time.  You don’t even need to visit the monument to talk to her, you know. Just call for her and she will listen, because she loved you so very much.”

 

Melina looked up to the sky and smiled. 

 

~//~

 

**_~ 300 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“You want me to do what, exactly?”

 

“I think you’d be a great teacher.  You are a very experienced soldier, in combat and in spec ops. You have presence and can talk to a crowd.  You have the respect of many and could easily garner more. You’re perfect for the job, Commander.”

 

“Councilor…”

 

“Kaidan, we’ve been working together for a couple years now.  It’s David, Anderson or just plain Captain to you. Councilor isn’t a title I ever thought I’d have and is, by far, not my favorite.”

 

Kaidan pursed his lips. “Anderson, you know I like to get my hands dirty.  Are you serious about wanting me to be a teacher? Like you said, that isn’t a title I ever imagined myself having.”  He stared at the Captain as wheels turned in thought but never gained tread.  Kaidan shook his head.  “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to decline.”

 

Anderson frowned for a moment then lifted his gaze back to the biotic.  “I still think you are the best man for the job.  I hope you’re ready, Commander.  I’m not about to give up trying to convince you.”

 

Kaidan chuckled, but on the inside, he eyed the councilor with skepticism.  ‘ _ What does he have planned, and why am I afraid?’ _

 

~//~

 

**_~ Five days later ~_ **

 

“Commander, you wished to see me?”

 

Kaidan nodded.  He’d had a weekend and a couple days to think about Anderson’s suggestion and had explained to Mel that she would be spending time with John and Mary on the Citadel so that she wouldn’t miss school so that he could do this.  Because, in the end and with most decisions he had made since joining the SSV Normandy, he used the acronym WWJD:

 

_ What Would Jamie Do? _

 

He was getting older and knew that he would eventually retire from the service, but knew that he didn’t want to miss any opportunities given to him.  This was an amazing opportunity for him as a biotic, as Melina had also pointed out.  After what happened on Virmire when Jamie spoke to Sovereign, he knew that the Reapers were coming.  Even before that, Jamie was constantly practicing her biotics to become stronger. The best of the best, she had once said.  Though, being a biotic N7  _ and _ a Spectre, you can’t get much more talented than that.

 

Kaidan had asked himself one night after talking to Melina, “ _ If Shepard had been asked to do this, she would have taken it in a heartbeat.”  _  Because that was how Jamie Shepard was.  Using her past experiences as an example, she would have chosen to lead an elite group of biotics to become better soldiers and better people.  So he could do no less.

 

“Yes, sir.  I’ve decided to take your offer to train and lead the biotic spec ops group.”

 

Anderson stood and walked around his large desk to face Kaidan and smiled before holding out his hand to the younger soldier. “Excellent.  I’ll start your transfer papers right away.”

 

~//~

 

**_~ 487 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“Here’s to a new year,” 

 

Kaidan lifted his Canadian Lager when his coworker finished her toast at a nice bar on the Citadel.  Another year, indeed. But he couldn’t be happier that they were another year away from 2183, if he were honest with himself.  Oh, he couldn’t deny that he had some of the best experiences of his life that year while spending most of it on the Normandy, but it was that October, the end of that year, that was the worst.

 

Hopefully 2185 would be better.

 

~//~

 

**_~ 515 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“How are the troops holding up?”

 

Kaidan turned from where he was monitoring the biotic soldiers before him that were training, to face his impromptu visitor. He smiled when he saw Anderson.

 

“They are doing well, surprisingly. Do you have tests for them to run?  I’m sure they are ready for them.  It’s been months.”

 

“I do because there are some covert operations that they will be needed on in the near future and I want you to set up your squads for deployment to be called in if needed in coming months.” Anderson nodded as he observed the seasoned troops.

 

“I already have them set up in teams that I’ve deemed work well together, Councilor. They are training together now.” He paused when the rest of Anderson’s words sank in. “Do you think something big is coming, sir?” Kaidan lowered his voice, but had a feeling that he knew why Anderson was planning on sending his students off as he had said. 

 

“You and I both know what is going on, but I appreciate you being ambiguous. When the time comes, they will know.” Anderson turned back to Kaidan. “I hear you are training as well.”

 

“Yes sir,” Kaidan nodded. “While training with my students, I’ve been toying with my own biotics, seeing how far my L2 will let me go before overdoing it.”

 

“I’m sure that Miss Shepard has gotten used to you coming home with headaches then?”

 

Kaidan reached up to rub at the back of his neck where his implant was. “She has taken to waiting for me with my medication and a glass of water when I return home.”

 

“Does she know why? Have you told her?”

 

“No, but I’m sure she is close to figuring it out.  She is Shepard’s daughter, after all.”

 

Anderson released a chortle before the two men fell into silence while watching the soldiers train, running drills Kaidan had specifically designed to train their biotics and develop them to their fullest. With evidence of the coming Reapers being brought out to the open, despite the disbelief of higher powers, everyone needed to be trained and ready for whatever was coming.

 

~//~

 

**_~ 640 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

“Joker’s here!” Melina sang when the doorbell rang, hurrying over to the door from the kitchen to let the pilot in. It’d been months since he had visited last, but now was as good a time as any.  Melina had insisted on gathering people at their house to celebrate his birthday and had been slaving in the kitchen all day making… something.  He wasn’t quite sure since she wouldn’t let him help even though he’d offered a dozen times. What Kaidan  _ could _ tell was that there was some kind of meat and something sweet.

 

Kaidan stood from the couch where he had been watching biotiball and drinking beer, and moved towards the door to welcome their only guest.  When Joker entered, Kaidan had to do a double take.

 

“Joker, you’re walking without crutches!”

 

“Yup!” Joker patted his thighs with a smile. “Turns out that there is a company that was studying Vroliks Syndrome and offered to help me out with a couple surgeries.”

 

Kaidan eyed him as Melina guided the pilot over to the couch.   _ Joker’s hiding something.  I may not be keeping up with medical advances, but I haven’t heard of any big research companies offering to help those with VS. _ He thought to himself as he walked over to the refrigerator to pull out a beer for Joker and took it to his guest.

 

Joker took the beer gladly and lifted it from where he sat to clink it with Kaidan’s.  “Happy birthday, man.”

 

Kaidan clinked his bottle to his friends before both tipped it back to drink deep of the brew. “Thanks, Joker. So, what company has been researching Vroliks?  I thought that would be big news.”

 

The younger man simply shrugged. “Some Asari company on Thessia. They heard it was a problem that hadn’t been solved on Earth and agreed to help in order to further strengthen political ties, or something like that. They’ve apparently been working on it for a while now and had a breakthrough.  So they started finding those people like me and offered to fix me.  So here I am!”

 

Joker was usually a very direct man, always looking you in the eye when speaking to you.  During his monologue, he never once looked at Kaidan, instead he stared at the screen. That meant that he was keeping something from Kaidan and he wanted to know why, but had a feeling that his friend wouldn’t be very forthcoming.  Was Anderson working on this?  As the Human Councilor, surely he had a finger in it somewhere. 

 

He decided he would talk to Anderson about it later when Melina brought out kabobs with roasted vegetables and steak, a plate with crackers with cream cheese, candied bacon and cilantro and a bowl of popcorn that smelled like there was some kind of spice on it.

 

“This looks awesome, kiddo!  I’m famished.” Joker dug into the food with abandon while Kaidan turned to Melina.

 

“This is amazing, thank you Mel.” He smiled and hugged the girl. 

 

Kaidan and Joker sank into the comfortable couch to enjoy the game and Melina snuggled into Kaidan’s side. Yeah, he’d save his questions for later.

 

~//~

 

**_~ 700 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy ~_ **

 

_ Shepard might be alive. _

 

_ Shepard was seen with known Cerberus agents. _

 

Kaidan read reports of sightings, the most recent being on Omega from a couple weeks ago, and it was like a punch in the gut. How could this be? It couldn’t, it wasn’t possible.  Dead was dead and people couldn’t be brought back from it after a certain amount of time and especially not after two years.

 

He had once wanted to believe she might be alive, he really did.  More than he could say did he hope that she had somehow survived the destruction of the Normandy.  But he had learned long ago not to let hope catch a spark in his heart lest it burn him to pieces. The emotion a demon from within, building him up only to tear him down. If she  _ had _ survived, wouldn’t she have tried to contact him?  Melina? So far as he knew, Jamie’s daughter hadn’t received any kind of message from her mother.  He decided that he would make a point to ask his pseudo-daughter about it when he got home.

 

Those thoughts and more were running through his head as he traveled back to his apartment near Tiberius Towers, where Melina awaited his return from an extended stay at the training facility for his spec ops group.  

 

Kaidan thought about the rumors he had overheard people talking about in the office, about how they had seen a woman with known Cerberus members that had matched Shepard’s description.  

 

He felt himself getting angry at the thoughts that Jamie might be alive and didn’t try to call someone. So filled with anger, he touched down in the landing zone outside the apartment building a little harder than he had intended.  Who was it, in that twisted organization, that looked like Jamie?  Had they made someone look like her on purpose using skin lightening injections and hair dyes?  Or had Cerberus just happen to find someone who looked a lot like Jamie from a distance to use for their own means? He slammed his finger into the button on the elevator, directing it to the seventieth floor. If Cerberus had done it on purpose to start rumors about Shepard being alive, why?  To what ends?

 

Kaidan paused as another thought crossed his mind.  What if they had collected her, if she had indeed got to a pod, and had been holding her prisoner for the last two years?  What if she had been their test subject? After the things they had seen done by Cerberus, Admiral Kahoku coming to mind, as they traveled, he wouldn’t be surprised. The idea of Jamie calling for help to deaf ears hurt, making him feel helpless and that he should have tried harder to find her and rescue her.

 

He shook his head.  Jamie wouldn’t cry for help - she’d do everything in her power to escape by her own means.  It was who she was.

 

Questions upon questions cluttered his mind as he rode the elevator to the floor where he lived with Melina. Kaidan smiled at the thought of the young lady, the rumors about her mother temporarily forgotten as the memory of his first interaction with Jamie’s family formed.  

 

After Jamie died and he had received her request from her Will, it had taken three days to decide if he wanted to accept the role of guardian she had asked of him. In the end, he contacted the couple that had taken care of Jamie and then Melina to arrange a meeting of the four of them, wanting to get to know his would-be charge before deciding.

 

They met at the base of the monument left on Earth to honor the fallen Alliance soldiers on the Normandy and Kaidan would have been lying to himself if he said he hadn’t been a little nervous. From the single interaction he had witnessed between the two, he knew that Jamie had loved Melina with all her heart.

 

Kaidan had watched the three of them as they walked towards him. He stood as still as a predator in the shade cast by the marble plinth during their approach and, even with his sunglasses on, he had to squint to see them. Jamie had once called John and Mary and elderly couple, but they both couldn’t have been over ninety years old with a good fifty or sixty years left to spend together.  As he’d watched them get closer to where he stood, Kaidan had felt jealousy. He wanted to have a relationship like theirs, from what Jamie had told him.  He’d wanted to have six kids, living together and loving each other for decades. Hell, he still did.

 

When the trio finally arrived, all four of them had been sombere at their situation.  All of them had loved Jamie and it had been a difficult time and situation. Kaidan lifted his hand to John and Mary in turn to shake their hands in greeting.  They had exchanged pleasantries for a moment before Kaidan turned to Melina and bent his knees in order to be eye-level with the girl.

 

_ ‘Looks like we finally get to meet in person, Melina.  I am Kaidan Alenko.’ _ He had said past a worn smile as he held out his hand to the younger girl.  She had short hair like her mother, but her’s was more brown than her mother’s mahogany. Melina had large brown eyes and a slightly cleft chin, likely from her father, but she had Jamie’s slim nose, freckles, and heart shaped lips set in an oval shaped face. She was also tall for a ten year old, which was unlike her mother.  Jamie had been five and a half feet tall on her best day and Melina was well over four feet tall already. But though they didn’t share height, they shared body types.  Jamie had been thin with lean muscles.  Kaidan had once thought it was because of her being a biotic.  However, now that he had met Melina, he began thinking that perhaps her small frame was more hereditary.

 

‘ _ Hi Kaidan! My name is Melina Shepard!’ _ Her sudden change from sadness to excitement had surprised him and brought a smile to his face. He remembered thinking to himself ‘Here is this child, who just lost her mother, and she is smiling. Maybe it’s easier than I thought.’

 

The four of them then spent the next two hours talking in front of the marble block, getting to know the three people before him who he would likely be interacting with a lot for the years to come.  Their conversation continued well into dinner time and he offered to take them to a nice Italian restaurant in Vancouver so that they could continue talking.  Kaidan enjoyed every moment, much to his surprise. 

 

As it had turned out, Jamie had been correct about John.  He had served in Earth’s Navy for almost twenty years prior to the discovery of the Prothean ruins on Mars and the subsequent creation of the Systems Alliance.

 

When the Systems Alliance had formed in 2149, John had joined the newly created military and was part of the First Contact War between Humanity and the Turians five years later. He never said why, but a decade after the end of the war, John suddenly decided to retire from the Alliance all together. So he and his lovely wife moved to Surrey and purchase a home to give homeless youth from the short war a place to live using his savings from fifty three years of service as well as money set aside from the crafting business Mary had run while staying home and raising their six children.

 

By the time they had decided to go their separate ways, Melina was sleeping against Mary’s shoulder, snoring softly and Kaidan chuckled. What a family Jamie had managed to find for herself, even at the age of eighteen. He’d found himself wishing he could have been a part of it.

 

‘ _ Mr. Alenko - ‘ _

 

_ ‘Please call me Kaidan, ma’am.’ _

 

_ ‘I will if you don’t call me ma’am.’  _ Mary had smiled as she had looked at him with knowing eyes. ‘ _ We raised six children who all called me ‘ma’am’ and I find myself disliking the term now. We can see that you cared for Jamie, and since it was in her Will, we will respect that she wished for you to take over care of Melina. John and I have grown close to the imp over the years and ask that, should you chose to take over her care, you might grant us the ability to visit her occasionally. We have begun to see her as a granddaughter and love her as if she were of blood relation.’ _

 

_ ‘Ma’...Mary, I don’t think that will be a problem.  If Melina is okay with living with me, I would love for her to do so. There will be times when she would need to stay with you for extended amounts of time when I get shipped out. But on shore leave or when Anderson, my ship CO, or other obligations require me to be at my home, she is more than welcome to stay.’ _

 

_ ‘That’s wonderful!’  _ Mary had clapped her wizened hands in excitement, accidentally jostling Melina awake.  The younger girl looked around with bleary eyes and rubbed the sleep from them.  The child was adorable.

 

‘ _ What do you think, Melina?  Would you like to live with your mother’s friend on the Citadel?’ _

 

_ ‘With Lieutenant Alenko?’ _ All three adults had nodded.  Melina had looked at them, staring Kaidan down as if studying him, reminding him eerily of her late mother.  Then she smiled at him, big and bright.

 

‘ _ Yes!’ _

 

The elevator chimed when it reached his desired floor, waking him from his memories.  When he reached the door to his spacious, two bedroom apartment, he paused to gather his bearings.  If Melina sensed there was something wrong, she would find a way to pull a confession out of him. That was another thing he realized that mother and daughter shared.  While they had been on missions prior to Saren’s defeat, rare was the person who could lie to Jamie Shepard.

 

Kaidan opened the door and walked inside, setting his keys on the table next to the door.  His eyes scanned his office space before moving past the hall leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms, over the entertainment area and to the kitchen, seeing Melina’s touch in the decor everywhere, but not the girl herself.

 

She had created a common theme in the decorations, going for sleek modern like the Citadel itself, but with a touch of Earth in the browns, forest greens and wood furnishing mixed in with the glass and steel.

 

“Mel?” Kaidan called after he listened closely for movement or music a moment, but hearing neither.  Concern for the, now, twelve year old bloomed - she usually met him at the door with a smile.

 

‘She’s probably in her room.’ He thought to himself as he removed his BDU jacket and placed it on the back of his desk chair before walking to the small hallway that was in front of their rooms and bathrooms.  Kaidan knocked on her door, but heard no sounds on the other side.  Quietly, Kaidan opened her door, the sliding panel making a slight whoosh as it slid from view.

 

Inside Melina’s room, he found the girl in question staring intently at her datapad with her earbuds in her ear and omni-tool active.  Kaidan chuckled, remembering times when he’d found Jamie in similar positions as she had worked on paperwork.  Kaidan walked over to her and gently placed his hand on her back, releasing her when she jumped and snapped her head towards him.

 

“Mel, you really shouldn’t use your earbuds to listen to music while you’re home alone.  What if I had been a robber?” He asked, standing straight and crossing his arms over his chest.

 

“What time is it?” Melina shuffled around the items on her desk looking for something.  Kaidan reached up to pluck an earbud from her ear so she could hear him.

 

“What are you looking for, Mel?”

 

“A clock.”

 

Kaidan chortled as he pressed a button on her still-active omni-tool and the time for the Citadel and all the council worlds popped up.  He smirked when Melina’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment.  She did a double take when she realized what time it was.

 

“It’s almost time for your date, Commander!” Melina shot from her seat and rushed past him and to Kaidan’s room next door. He followed the spitfire at a more leisurely pace.

 

‘The Date’.  The event she had been looking forward to since he had told her about it the week before.  He’d finally caved to his coworkers repeated pestering at the office and agreed to go on a date with a doctor one of them knew.  They’d spent the last year trying to convince him to move on, that holding on to what he felt for Jamie was insanity when the market was open wide and clear for a guy like him.  At first, he’d denied them, saying he was fine and that Melina still had John and Mary.  But when he got home from work two weeks ago and it came time to sleep, he climbed into his cold bed and realized that they were right, that he was lonely and couldn’t keep holding a flame for a woman two years dead.

 

Up until then, he’d listened to the recorded message Jamie had arranged to have sent to him in the event of her death nearly every night with Melina. But the times he listened to it were growing fewer and farther between.  That was another sign that, maybe, he was ready to move on. So, when he agreed to the date, Kaidan gave the datapad to Melina to keep safe - a final memento from her mother.

 

He watched Melina attack his closet looking for something for him to wear and it brought another smile to his face.

 

“Where are you taking this doctor-no-name?  Someplace nice?  Or a sports bar in the Wards to watch Earth hockey or biotiball?” He could practically hear the sneer in her voice at the idea of taking his date to a bar.

 

“What if he wants to go to a bar? Maybe he likes sports like I do?  I haven’t met him before, so I have no idea what he likes.” What he didn’t tell her was that he had already made reservations at a nice restaurant because he liked stirring her up. Her reactions were always entertaining.

 

Melina paused, taking on a look of deep concentration.  A moment later, her eyes lit up followed by a smile as she returned to searching his closet for civilian clothing.

 

To her credit, and for being only twelve, she had quite a knack for style in both clothing and furniture, dressing him in outfits that looked good and didn’t clash.  If he had dressed himself, he’d likely have either worn his BDUs or a t-shirt and jeans.  Tonight, she chose a pair of black slacks and boots with a plain white polo and black leather jacket.

 

“Biker business,” she called it as she handed it to him before pushing him out of his own room and towards his bathroom across from hers.

 

“I think your mom gave her bike to Joker, not me.” Melina rolled her eyes.

 

Kaidan couldn’t resist the temptation to mess with Melina further.  As she pushed against him to get him into the bathroom, he started leaning back against her arms slightly and gasped. “Oh no!  They turned up the gravity on the ward!  What will I do?!”

 

“It is not!” She grunted as she continued to push against his lower back. He just chuckled and leaned back more, making sure to support himself with one of his legs so as not to hurt her in any way. With a low growl, she gave him one final push before pressing the button to close the sliding door.

 

Thirty minutes later, Kaidan emerged washed and coiffed to see Melina waiting with her arms crossed over her chest.  When she noticed him, her brows furrowed as she looked over him with scrutiny.  After a moment, she looked him in the eye and gave him a smiling nod. “That’ll do, Commander.”

 

Kaidan laughed and pulled her into a bear hug.  “Alright, you little smartass.” He said before pulling away and holding Melina at arms length.  “I’m leaving a credit chit with you tonight so you can order take-out or something if you don’t feel like cooking for yourself.”

 

Maintaining her joviality, she pulled out of his grasp completely, straightened her spine and gave him a crisp salute that would make any marine proud.  “Aye-aye Commander.”

 

He laughed again and reached forward to ruffle her short hair, earning a growling swipe.  “Okay, brat, I’m heading out.  The doctor and I are going to be at Ryuusei Sushi bar, so if you need me and I don’t answer my ‘tool, you know where to find us.”

 

“I thought you said you hadn’t decided on where to go yet!” Kaidan shrugged with a smile and Melina huffed.  He grabbed his keys and pressed the button to exit the apartment.

 

When the door slid shut behind him with a hiss and a click, Kaidan released a breath and let his shoulders slump for a second before straightening once more and walking back towards the elevator. He could do this, seeing someone for the first time in years in a way other than work.

 

~//~

 

It was approaching midnight in the night cycle when Kaidan walked into the apartment he shared with Melina.  He did his best to enter quietly so he didn’t wake her.

 

The doctor, James, that his co-workers had set him up with had been nice, funny, fascinating and handsome as hell.

 

But thoughts of the last time he had even planned a date assaulted his memory the entire time.

 

So many times during their date, Kaidan’d had to pull himself from the memory of the last words Jamie had said to him as she fell towards Alchera.  He hoped James hadn’t realized his mind wasn’t one hundred percent on their date.  Perhaps he should call him in the morning and apologize.  

 

When James had brought up Melina, he asked if he enjoyed being called dad.  Kaidan had needed a moment to answer because he couldn’t recall ever being called the title by Melina or anyone.

 

_ “I don’t know, to be honest.  The subject hasn’t come up before.” _

 

_ ‘Did you hear that people are saying that they have seen Commander Shepard on Omega? One of my friends that works down on the Zakera ward said he saw her past a couple weeks ago, but I figured he was full of shit because she’s dead, right?  Hey, didn’t you work under her command during that whole debacle with that Turian Spectre? What was his name? Saren, right?’ _

 

That had been the only awkwardness between the two men as they ate their dinner, contributing to her face showing in the back of his mind.

 

Kaidan ran a hand down his face now as the door slid shut behind him.  Jamie’s smiling face manifested behind his closed eyelids, making him groan.  He didn’t believe tonight was a mistake- he had truly had a fun evening with James - but he would likely not be doing this again for a while.  There was a feeling in his gut like he was cheating on Jamie by dating other people, but that was absurd. He and Shepard had never been in a true relationship other than platonic. He was starting to wonder if he would ever be able to have a life and see people, without the feeling of betrayal again.

 

The Commander paused just inside the living room, seeing the t.v playing Elcor comedy on low, when he heard rustling fabric. Scanning the room, Kaidan noticed that the throw, which was usually draped across the back of the couch, was now laying on the seat cushions below.  The sight made him smile.

 

Melina looked like she had tried to stay awake until he returned by watching t.v, but her attempt had been unsuccessful.  When he rounded the lounger on the couch, he watched her shift in her sleep and her hand slip from under the blanket.  With it came a datapad clutched lightly in her hand. Kaidan crouched next to her head and saw Shepard on the darkened screen of the datapad and he felt the corners of his smile fall.  It appeared Melina had been watching the message of her mother had left for him before falling asleep.

 

He reached up and brushed her bangs away from her cheeks, noticing the delicate skin under her eyes were puffy, as if she had fallen asleep crying while watching the vid of Jamie.  He felt for his charge and could understand why.

 

Kaidan gently removed the pad from her hand, placed it on the coffee table and turned to pick her up as gently as he could from the sofa as Kaidan had after the beacon explosion on Eden Prime with her mother.  In his arms, Melina sniffed and nestled her face into his neck as he walked the handful of paces from the living room to her room that shared a wall with his. He wanted to tell her about the rumors about her mother possibly being alive, but they could wait.

 

~//~

  
  



	4. Horizon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for clarification, the “# of days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy” thing I’ve added these last two chapters is for a feeling of the passage of time, that loved ones feel each and every one of them, wondering when they will finally stop counting, when they will finally stop feeling the pain of loss.

 

~ **705 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy** ~

  
“You’re going where?” Melina exclaimed, her hands balled at her fist and looking more angry and upset than he had ever seen her.

  
Kaidan sank into his seat on the couch she had just stood from, rubbing his neck in exhaustion.  “I don’t like it either, Mel. But Anderson told me that they need me to take a break from teaching to go to Horizon. I’m going to be part of an outreach program to improve Alliance relations with the colonies out there.  It’s only for a month or two.  Besides, your grandparents will be staying here to keep you company when you aren’t in school.” Kaidan paused, looking up at her from where she stood above him. “I thought you’d be excited to see them again.”

  
He wanted to tell her the real reason for his getting shipped to the Terminus Systems; that there were reports of a Human colony about to get attacked.  That Cerberus was behind it.  That Jamie was rumored to be within their ranks. 

  
But Kaidan decided to keep quiet, knowing that Melina was aware of what Cerberus was and had done in the past. He had brought it up with her one night and she informed him that her mother had told her what to watch out for and to ignore anything they said. Melina would be just as upset as him if she knew the rumors and reports about Jamie. And if those rumors were true, he didn’t want Melina to hate her mother for being part of Cerberus.

  
“Well, yes. But why do you have to go? Why not some other soldier? This means you will miss the anniversary!”

  
He simply shrugged then noted how she had wrapped her arms around her torso, as if to protect herself. He knew that he would be missing the 2 year anniversary of the events over Alchera, that Melina wanted to make it an annual event for the four of them, if John and Mary were able to join, but it was out of his hands. It was hard to believe that just over seven hundred days had passed since the accident and, without a doubt, every one of Jamie’s companions felt each and every day without their friend. Some more than others.

  
Kaidan opened his arms from where he sat. At least he had one Shepard to care for still.

  
“Come’ere.” Melina reluctantly moved back to the couch and sat down next to him. “What’s going on, Mel?” When he received a nonchalant shrug in reply, he looked down at her with a raised eyebrow.  She sighed in reply.

  
“Not only will you not be with me when we go to visit mama, but I hate when you get sent away.  I know it doesn’t happen often, but I get scared when you do.  What happens if you end up like mama? She went on a mission in the Terminus systems and never came back. Now you’re going to the same sector!”

  
Kaidan hugged her close, putting her head under his chin, hearing the fear in her voice.  The Terminus tended to bring fear to many because of the horror stories.  “You don’t need to worry about that happening, brat.  That was an isolated incident and not likely to happen again.”

  
She lifted her head and he was forced to lift his to look down at her again.  “Promise?”

  
“I promise.”

  
The two sat in silence as they continued watching Blasto 4 on the vid screen, each deep in their own thoughts.  It was Kaidan who spoke first, thinking back to his date with Dr. James and his question about Melina calling him ‘dad’.

  
“Hey Mel?” He didn’t look down, but when he felt her hum and look up at him again, he continued. “It’s been almost two years now.  Do you think you could ever consider me as a father figure to you?”

  
Melina sat up and turned to him on the cushion.  At first, he thought he might have said something wrong, but when she gave him a small smile, he relaxed.  “I do.”

  
“Then why do you call me Commander?”

  
“It’s your title, isn’t it?”

  
“Well, yes. Outside the apartment. But inside, you don’t have to call me that.”

  
“Do you want me to call you dad, Commander?”

  
Kaidan felt a flush form. He didn’t know what he wanted. “You can call me whatever you like. Within reason.” He added when she opened her mouth to reply.

  
She giggled and settled back into his side to resume watching the screen. “Calling you Commander is fun and what I’m used to.”

  
“So, a nickname? Like when I call you Mel instead of Melina?”  She nodded and he smiled.  “I can live with that. Though, if you wanted to call me ‘dad’ I could get used to it if you wanted.”

  
“I’ll think about it.” She paused.  “Do you think grandma and grandpa will let me put flowers on the monument?”

  
“I’m sure they will.”  ‘Tell her about the rumors.  She should know before she hears about it from other sources. Thank God she isn’t interested in the newscasts yet.’ He thought to himself and sighed.

  
He didn’t tell her.

  
~//~

  
~ **740 days after the destruction of the SSV Normandy, 9 days after the 2 year anniversary** ~

  
“Lilith, we’ve got a problem.” Kaidan murmured when he caught up to one of the only colonists that seemed to tolerate him. She smiled at him softly and almost in pity as he had to turn sideways to avoid running into another colonist going the opposite direction that didn’t bother to move himself.

  
“Still can’t calibrate the targeting matrix?”

  
He shook his head as they continued walking. “Those defense towers are useless if we don’t figure it out.” He felt angry as he continued dodging more colonists they passed because he didn’t want to run into them. None of them were bothering to move for him and he knew why.

  
“Sorry, Commander.  Getting our comms systems back online takes priority.”

  
Kaidan paused, having given up avoiding running into people and scoffed. “Yeah, okay. I’m surprised people haven’t blamed that one on me too.”

  
The pity returned to Lilith’s face.  Being the only one who would talk to him over the last month, they had grown to be friends.  He liked talking to her about various breakthroughs and inventions in the tech industry, and had even thought about asking her out for drinks once the turrets and the comms were back online.

  
“People out here don’t trust the Alliance. It’s nothing personal, Commander.” Kaidan opened his mouth to reply that their lack of trust in the Alliance was ridiculous, but stopped when she furrowed her eyebrows and slowly turned to look up at the sky. “What is that?”

  
Kaidan followed her gaze up to the clouds and saw nothing at first, but a strange humming sound was steadily growing in volume, the vibrations in the air causing his biotics to react in kind, and was causing the birds roosting in the nearby trees to scatter. Then, as they stared and people started gathering behind them, something was becoming more and more visible through the natural haze of Horizon’s atmosphere.  He reached behind his back for his standard Alliance-issued AR and brought the gun’s scope up to his eye to get a better view of the sky.  What he saw made his stomach drop.

  
After the destruction of the Normandy, video and reports that the black box had sent to Alliance high command on Arcturus shortly before the ship had exploded had been released to officers, showing the ship that had attacked them.  In the vid he had seen, Amada, the star that Alchera orbited, backlit a ship, lending no detail to any markings or design that anyone could recognize.  The ship that he was seeing now had a similar outline to the one he had seen in the vid.

  
‘No, it can’t be. This has to be a bad dream, a nightmare.’ Kaidan thought as he watched lightning flash in the atmosphere around the ship as it discharged its drive core, creating static charge.  He felt the static under his skin and stirring with his biotics as he turned to Lilith with his gun still raised towards their attackers.

  
“Get everyone to the safehouse.” Everyone froze as they watched a swarm of bees flying towards them. When they got closer, he felt his stomach drop. These things were too big to be bees. When the bugs reached them, Kaidan released bursts of gunfire at the creatures as they approached, taking down few.  “I’ll cover you.  Run!”

  
He risked a glance over his shoulder as he shot into the swarm, noting that the colonists finally listened to him and began running back towards the colony and towards the safehouses. Except Lilith.  “Hurry, Lilith!”

  
Kaidan heard her fall as she quickly back peddled to run away with the crowd. When he noticed a small pocket in the swarm, he risked turning towards Lilith to help her stand and pushed her gently in the direction of the safehouses. When he turned back to the swarm to continue attempting to keep them at bay - anything to give the colonists more time to escape, no matter if they liked him or not - Kaidan cried out in pain when one of the creatures bit him in the neck. He quickly grabbed it and brought it to where he can see it.

  
“What the hell?” Kaidan whispered as he quickly studied the bug like creature that was attacking the colony.  He felt dread fill him when a numbness started engulfing his body like cold water over his skin at an accelerated rate. ‘Gotta push through it.  Gotta save the colony.’ He said to himself.  But it was no use.

  
He grabbed his rifle and started to bring it up so he could focus fire on the creatures once more, but he couldn’t seem to lift his limbs; it felt like they weighed a ton. He couldn’t even turn his head. No matter what he did, no muscles would listen to his mental command to move. Panic threatened to take over him, not knowing the extent of the paralysis.  Would it wear off?  Would it kill him?

  
‘This must be what happened to the other Human colonies.’ He thought as he watched the swarm continue on, their job done with him.

  
Kaidan felt his heart pumping wildly in his ears and sending blood through his veins, remembering what Melina had told him about her fears before he left. ‘I can’t leave her alone. Shepard is relying on me to make sure she has a good, long life of peace.  I need to get this shit out of my system so I can escape.’

  
Minutes later as he stood in the grass, Kaidan started feeling warmth run through his system and slowly, but surely, experienced a tingling sensation start in his fingers and toes. Was there some kind of antidote that his armor had been equipped with without his knowledge? He had thought it strange when they gave him a new set of armor before he had left for the colony. Or perhaps his heightened metabolism from his biotics was pushing the anesthetic through his system faster.

  
When feeling came back to the majority of his legs, he collapse to the grass below and reveled in the coolness of the blades against his face for a moment before jumping back up to hide in the closest house to him, closing the door and jamming lock behind him.

  
After everything he had been through in his military career, the only time he had been more scared for his life than he was right now, was on the Normandy over Alchera as it burned around them. He had to contact the Alliance and let them know what was happening to the colony, that their intel that it was next to get hit was right. Kaidan cursed under his breath when he remembered that he had never gotten the chance to fix the comms or calibrate the tower’s targeting matrix. So that meant no messages for the Alliance or for Melina until after the creatures left.

  
He sat in the, now, abandoned house for what felt like hours, getting lost in his thoughts and refusing to let any fears at the situation get the better of him. He had to keep his head on his shoulders.  But staying in one place for too long wasn’t safe, what with those things rounding everyone up in the colony just minutes ago. There had to be something that he could do to help these people. Perhaps he could sneak around from shadow to shadow until he made it to either the comms tower or the GUARDIAN turrets. He quietly stood and unlocked the door, bringing his rifle up in case the creatures were on the other side, and went outside to ascertain the level of threat in the colony, perhaps look for survivors.

  
When he heard the ‘BAM BAM BAM’ of the turrets firing, his head swiveled around quickly to the nearest one to make sure he wasn’t imagining it and was surprised to see that it was firing on the patchwork ship as it was preparing to take off.  The Alliance was here! They had to have been the ones to get the turrets up and running. “But how?”

  
Kaidan checked his omni-tool to see if there was a signal and was surprised to find that there was.  He shot off a quick email about what happened to Anderson, then wrote a message to Melina that he was coming home soon and started searching the town.

  
Several minutes later, as he approached the corner of a building near the center of the colony, Kaidan paused at the sound of voices, listening close to identify the speakers.

  
“No!  Don’t let them get away!” Delan.  One of the more outspoken colonists when it came to things involving Kaidan or the Alliance.  He was about to step out from around the corner when the sound of another voice stopped him cold in his tracks, ice filling his veins, yet his heart sped up as if there was a fire under it. No.  It was impossible.  The rumors were wrong. It couldn’t be...

  
“There’s nothing we can do. They’re gone.”

  
_It was! Jamie!_

  
It took all of his willpower, and some he didn’t realize that he had, to keep himself from rushing out from where he was hiding and go to her.  To confirm with his eyes that she was indeed alive. Kaidan felt his heart rate increase further and he started panting with the effort to not run to her and take her in his arms, to make sure she was real. ‘Get a hold of yourself, Alenko. It can’t be her.’ He told himself, forcing his breathing to calm along with his heart.

  
He heard shuffling in the grass.  “Half the colony’s in there! They took Egan and Sam and Lilith!  Do something!” ‘Lilith is gone? No!’

  
“I didn’t want it to end this way! I did what I could!” Anger was infusing Jamie… no… the woman’s tone.  It couldn’t be Jamie. The rumors weren’t true. People can’t come back from the dead. And even if she had survived, she wouldn’t be with Cerberus, so if it was Jamie, she was with the Alliance.

  
“More than most, Shepard.” Kaidan recognized the dual-toned timbre of a Turian - was particularly familiar with this male and his familiar voice. If Garrus was there, it had to be Jamie.  He had to see for himself because his disbelief wouldn’t allow him to just accept it.

  
“Shepard? Wait… I know that name.” Delan paused.  “Sure, I remember you.  Some big Alliance hero.”

  
Kaidan holstered his rifle and walked around the corner to where the group was standing, but he focused on Delan, not wanting to think that Jamie was alive, only to find out that it was a different person with the last name Shepard. But it was unavoidable.  His heart and his mind weren’t in sync with each other and his heart won out.  Kaidan’s eyes were automatically drawn to the woman in the center, surrounded by Delan, Garrus and a woman whose features was shadowed beneath her hood.

  
For her part, Jamie didn’t seem surprised to see him on Horizon.  He just saw relief in her gaze and it made him wonder why. Was she, perhaps, worried he might have been taken by whatever had just blown through the settlement?

  
For Kaidan, time stood still and everything around them fell away. She looked almost the same as the last time he had laid eyes on her back in the crew quarters of the Normandy. Her previously short mahogany hair was now past her shoulders and waving slightly at the ends despite parts of it sticking to her face from sweat.  Her dark blue eyes shone in the meager sunlight cast by Iera, the system’s star. The rest of her body looked the same, even under her light armor, but there was something different in the biotics that her body created that flowed over his body.  He recognized the warmth they created, was familiar with it, but there was more power to them than before.

  
Kaidan’s eyes caught on her armor, the colors similar to the ones they had seen scientists wearing years ago.  He thought he might have even seen where a patch had once been, but it had been removed.  Small comfort, but anger still welled in his belly.

  
“Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy, the first human Spectre; Savior of the Citadel.” Kaidan paused next to Delan. When he managed to tear his eyes from her, he faced the colonist.  “You’re in the presence of a legend, Delan.  And a ghost.”

  
Kaidan’s eyes returned to Jamie as if magnetized, still not able to believe his eyes that she was there, in the flesh.  That the rumors he had heard around the Citadel and reports on the news had been right. At least in some aspects. He heard Delan scoff.  “All the good people we lost, and you get left behind. Figures. Screw this.  I’m done with you Alliance types.”

  
When the other man left, Kaidan slowly walked towards Shepard, trying hard to believe that he wasn’t just dreaming that she had returned. It had certainly happened before. What should he do? Hold out his hand to shake? No, he couldn’t do that.  What if he was dreaming and shaking her hand caused her to become intangible before he could embrace her? And what of her feelings for him she stated having before Alchera? 

  
Kaidan studied her from head to toe.  Same hair, same eyes, same face.  Same everything. But was she really the same Jamie Shepard that everyone thought had died over Alchera?  He had to know. He stepped forward to embrace her, but was stopped by her outstretched hand. Kaidan took it gladly. The warmth of her clasped hand with his seeped through the thin gloves of their light armor. Apart from the tingling of their clasped hands, nothing happened around them.  He was awake and this was real.

  
“I thought you were dead, Shepard.  We all did.”

  
“It’s been too long, Kaidan.  How… how have you been?” She replied, stepping back and severing contact with him completely. The small stutter in her question drew his attention.  She never did that. When he saw pink infuse her cheekbones, he thought perhaps she was just as nervous talking to him as he was to her after so long. If it was truly even her. 

  
Anger and upset filled him at the idea that she might have been alive this whole time and didn’t contact anybody, letting them mourn in pain at the thought that she was gone from them forever. Sure, he had thought that if she had been alive, she might have been captured from an escape pod, but he had quickly cast the idea aside. There had to be a logical reason behind all of this.

  
His thoughts returned to Melina. Did Jamie ever think of her daughter while she was playing dead? Because she certainly wasn’t dead now, so that had to be it. Kaidan couldn’t imagine the pain Melina had gone through when Shepard died.  He knew that she had been quiet in that pain, turning her focus towards school, but how much had she endured in her silence? He needed to calm and talk to her like a rational adult, but it seemed his brain decided to take charge instead of his heart

  
“Is that all you have to say? You show up after two years and just act like nothing happened.” ‘No!  That’s not what I wanted to say!’ His mind spat angrily.  He didn’t like the spite in his tone, and neither did Jamie.  When she flinched at his words, he felt his body attempt to do the same. Instead, he leaned in with his brain still in control. “I would have followed you anywhere, Shepard! Thinking you were gone… It tore me up inside. She didn’t show it, but Melina was devastated by your death.  She still is. Have you forgotten about her? Why didn’t you try to contact me?  Why didn’t you try to let any of us know you were alive? Something! ”

  
“Kaidan, it wasn’t my choice!” Jamie growled as she stepped closer to Kaidan.  “I spent the last two years in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me.”

  
Kaidan stepped back, feeling sick to his stomach as he looked from Jamie, to Garrus and the mysterious woman. Oh God, it’s true. The rumors that she was with Cerberus were true. “You’re with Cerberus now. Garrus too? I can’t believe the rumors and reports were right.” ‘This isn’t Jamie.  She would never work for Cerberus. Not after everything we’ve seen.’

  
“Reports?  You mean you already knew?”

  
He focused on the Turian, unable to look at Jamie right now. “Alliance intel thought Cerberus might be behind the missing human colonies.  We got a tip this colony might be the next one to get hit. Anderson stonewalled me, but there were rumors that you weren’t dead.  That… that you were working for the enemy.”

  
Jamie stepped forward again, obviously wanting to be close to him, but he couldn’t.  He didn’t want her close to him right now.  Not while there were so many unknowns. “Cerberus and I want the same thing, Kaidan. To save human colonies.  But I do NOT answer to them.”

  
“Do you really believe that, Shepard?” Kaidan stepped forward, until they were nearly touching, chestplate to chestplate, disregarding his feelings only moments before. The feeling of anger flared. “Or is that just what Cerberus wants you to believe, that they programmed into your brain? I wanted to believe the rumors that you were alive.  That perhaps you were able to get to another life pod before the explosion. That you had used the attack as a means to go undercover. But I never expected anything like this. You turned your back on everything we stood for! You’ve turned your back on the Alliance, on me.”

  
“Kaidan, you know me!  Better than most! You know I’d only do something like this for the right reason.  You saw it yourself: The Collectors are targeting human colonies, and working with the Reapers.”

  
He sighed. Her words had a ring of truth to them and she had always done what was needed to finish a mission. Torfan was a fine example of that. But to align herself with Cerberus? No. That was too far and too much to ask.  “I want to believe you, Shepard. I really do, but I don’t trust Cerberus. They could be using the threat of a Reaper to manipulate you.  What if they’re behind it all? What if they are the ones working with the Collectors?”

  
Distantly, he thought he saw Garrus’ three fingers clench on one side. “Damnit, Kaidan!  You’re so focused on Cerberus that you’re ignoring the real threat.”

  
“You’re letting how you feel about their history get in the way of fact.”

  
He felt his jaw drop slightly.  Had she truly forgotten every sick experiment they had discovered with the Cerberus emblem all over them?  Every scientist that had exclaimed that what they did was for the betterment of the human race? Kaidan shook his head.  “That may be true. Or maybe you feel like you owe Cerberus because they saved you. Maybe you’re the one who’s not thinking straight.” 

  
He sighed and shook his head as he took a step back, breathing deep to calm his racing heart.  “You’ve changed, Jamie. But I still know where my loyalties lie.  I am an Alliance soldier. Always have been, always will be. I’ve got to report back to the Citadel.  Let them decide if they believe your story or not.” He turned to leave.

  
“Kaidan wait!  Join me! I could use someone like you on my crew. It will be just like old times!”

  
Kaidan shook his head as he kept his back to her.  “No, it won’t.  I’ll never work for Cerberus.”  He looked over his shoulder to her once more, reaffirming his memory of her.  “Goodbye, Shepard, and be careful.”

  
He had gone no more than fifteen paces when he heard her shout his name.

  
“Kaidan wait!”

  
He didn’t.

  
~//~

  
‘The distress beacon is ready for launch.’

  
‘Will the Alliance get here in time?’

  
‘I don’t know.’ She thought to herself before the Normandy gave a mighty jerk, causing both marines to lose their balance.  Jamie caught Kaidan as he got thrust towards her and she steadied him.  She quickly looked back at the fuzzing screen behind her, the orange glow shining off the screen showing that it, too, was no longer connected to the comm buoy near by. It now showed the ship’s schematics with various sections flashing a luminous and glaring red.

  
Jamie turned back to Kaidan a second before pushing past him to reach for a fire extinguisher.  She had to save the Normandy, or at least give the crew enough time to get to the escape pods.

  
“The Alliance won’t abandon us.  We just need to hold on.”  Jamie tossed the fire extinguisher to Kaidan to indicate that he should continue trying to put out the fires in the sleeping pod area while she returns to the screen. 

  
The entire layout of the Normandy was flashing now and she felt dread settle deep in her gut. Jamie brought up the button to sound the alarm to abandon ship, telling the entire crew to evacuate to the escape pods immediately.  If the readouts she was seeing were correct, there was irreparable damage in the hull and fires in over fifty percent of the spaces on the ship. No kinetic barrier could cover that much damage and the fire retardant systems were offline. There was no saving the Normandy now. 

  
Jamie turned back to Kaidan. “Kaidan, I need you to get everyone on the evac shuttles.”

  
“What about Joker?  He’s still in the cockpit.” Kaidan was still putting out fires around her as she fiddled with the screen to try and close bulkheads along the ship where the biggest breaches were, to keep as much oxygen in the ship as possible. “He won’t abandon ship.”

  
Jamie felt his eyes on her and the sound of the extinguisher stop.  “I’m not leaving you either, Jamie.”

  
She sighed into her comms, knowing he could hear it, but also felt a secret smile form on her lips in sadness.  He never called her by her first name - he always felt like it was too informal while they were shipside.

  
Jamie looked around the pod room as it burned around them. The dream she had experienced last night about death, icy coldness, loneliness and fear, that had lead her to creating a vid for Kaidan and updating her Will in the middle of the night cycle, seemed to be coming true.  Jamie walked over to Kaidan and gently took the extinguisher away from him.  “I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles.  I consider you my second in command, they will follow you.  I will go take care of Joker.”

  
Suddenly, there was an explosion from the opposite wall that pushed them around with its force, creating a noticeable incline in the floor.

  
“But Jamie!”

  
Jamie and Kaidan both grabbed onto something that was solid, and not aflame, to steady themselves as the ship continued to rock and shake violently with each attack. “Kaidan, go.”  When she saw uncertainty in his eyes through his helmet’s visor, she pressed a hand tenderly to the side of his mask.  “I need you to live. Now, go!”

  
Kaidan stared at her, his expression turning unreadable through his visor before reluctantly agreeing.  “Aye-aye, Commander.”

  
She watched him run off before she casted her gaze around the room once more where the sleeping pods hung, watching the Normandy fall apart around her. Jamie turned to the screen at the back of the room once more, bringing up the launch sequence for the distress beacon and punched the button to cast it off, hoping it would be heard by any near-by Alliance vessel within a half lightyear’s distance from them.

  
As she made her way to the bridge, she heard Joker sending out a distress call to go with the beacon she had just released, begging the ship to hold together. Her heart broke for the pilot.  He had been so proud and cocky to have been assigned as the pilot for the Normandy.  She couldn’t imagine what it was like to see it fall apart from his point of view. When she was walking towards the cockpit, she was relieved to see that he had managed to erect a barrier between him and the darkness of space, but knew it wouldn’t stay up long with the shape the Normandy was in. It was a miracle there was still power flowing through her systems to maintain the shield.

  
“Come on, Joker.  We have to get out of here!”

  
“No!  I won’t abandon the Normandy!” He cried as his fingers flew across the panel, trying to steer the ship into a sustaining orbit around the planet below. “I can still save her!”

  
“The Normandy is lost.  Going down with the ship won’t change that.”

  
Her words must have reached him because his fingers paused before he looked up to her and back in thought.  He nodded and looked back at her again.  “Yeah okay.  Help me up.”

  
Jamie had little issue lifting him out of his chair, being nearly as thin as she was, but felt him shift when he made one last tap on the panel, growling into the comms, “They’re coming about for another attack!”

  
She looked up after hooking his arm over her shoulder amidst his grunts of pain, watching as a yellow beam of energy sliced the ship clean in half. Jamie half carried, half dragged Joker around the corner to where the bridge escape shuttle lay waiting across from the main ship access and unceremoniously tossed him into the closest seat.  She knew that she had likely broken a couple of his bones thanks to his Vrolik’s Syndrome, but better just a few broken bones than just dead.

  
Just as she was about to climb in after him, another explosion caused the severed half of the ship next to them to fall away, disrupting the shield keeping air in and the cold of space out.  Jamie felt herself being dragged away by the vacuum of the darkness and scrambled to grab onto something to get herself back to the pod.  Looking ahead, she saw that Joker was safely harnessed down and felt relief, but it was short lived when that yellow beam shot through the hull of the ship between her and Joker.

  
She saw terror and sadness in Joker’s eyes as they looked at each other from either side of the beam.  She could hear a buzz of voices calling for her, for Joker, other members of her crew through the comms in her helmet.  She somehow heard Kaidan’s voice over all the others and he was shouting her name.

  
Another explosion rocked the ship, forcing her to lose her grip on the wall next to the release button for Joker’s pod, so with what momentum she could garner, she stretched forward as far as she could and pressed the button to slam the door to his pod shut, cutting Joker’s shout to her, and jettison the shuttle away from the doomed vessel. 

  
Jamie floated there for a moment, trying as hard as she could to keep from breathing heavily, watching Joker’s pod grow smaller and smaller. When a spark caught her eye as another shot came from the attacking ship, she turns just in time to see a gas line ignite, the resulting force sending her flying, and without gravity to slow her down, her body was forced into the opposite wall of the bridge and she cried out in pain.

  
She began looking around for something to grab, like a life preserver in an ocean, but found nothing. All she found were frozen bodies and bits of the Normandy cast adrift above Alchera. She could feel it starting to get harder and harder to breathe. She had to calm down.

  
Liara’s lovely features came to mind and Jamie smiled. Lovely Liara - Jamie felt a pang in her heart at how hurt Liara had looked when she’d turned the Asari away before going to Ilos.  Then Lina’s face came forward, happy and carefree, and Jamie could feel herself calming further even as she acknowledged she was beginning to fall to the planet’s surface. Kaidan’s visage slowly formed over Lina’s, his amber eyes sparkling and the smirk he would give her that sent butterflies through her belly and caused her knees to turn to jelly forming on his lips. When she survived, when she saw his face again, she would tell him how she felt.  Maybe he could tell if it was love or not and tell her.

  
Jamie flinched in surprise and turned her head around when her HUDs alarm went off, showing her oxygen dropping rapidly, and saw that the tube connecting her helm to her suit that supplied her air had gotten disconnected when she ran into the wall. She frantically tried to reach around to fix it, but without anything to push off of, it was nigh impossible. If she didn’t reconnect the tube supplying the oxygen that was quickly escaping her suit, she would be done for and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

  
As she tried to reconnect her oxygen, she looked up and watched for several moments as Amada rose over the horizon of Alchera.  Such a beautiful sight. An astounding calm came over her out of nowhere, despite feeling fear and regret. Maybe it truly was her time.

  
“She...rd… hear…”

  
Her ears perked at the gravelly male voice breaking through the static. A small amount of relief filled her at the sound of his voice.  He was still alive! “Kaidan?”

  
“Jamie! Whe... you?”

  
“I’m sorry, Kaidan.” She whispered and paused to look at the horizon again. “I won’t be making it to lunch on the Citadel after the mission like we’d planned.”

  
She thought she heard him say something, but it was drowned out by the roar of entering the upper atmosphere. Resisting the urge to cry out as the flames of her re-entry burned through her suit and though she wished she could say more, she used what life she had left to whisper into her comms:

  
“Watch over her.”

  
~//~

  
Jamie shot up in her bed with a shout, panting, gasping and covered in sweat, her sheets tangled around her bare legs and soaked through. She quickly looked around her room to see the larger, more spacious floorplan of the captain’s quarters on the Normandy SR-2. Her home for the past several months. She brought her knees up tight to her chest and lifted her hands to thread through her hair, tugging on the longer locks as she groaned, still gasping for breath and leaning her forehead to touch her raised knees. 

  
The night she fell to Alchera’s surface was a constant bed companion on one side of her as she slept, the memory playing like a twenty first century slide show past her closed eyes. The visions from the beacon were there as well, both cocooning her with their breath of death and cold fingers as they wrapped around her heart like a vice. Gone were the nightmares of Torfan, replaced by something far, far worse. What she wouldn’t give to dream of the times she spent with Melina, or Liara, or Kaidan.

  
With a flick of her wrist, Jamie activated her ‘tool and saw that it was nearly time to begin her shift. She groaned as she tossed her feet over the edge of the bed and took off her omni tool to place on the table next to the bed, then stood and moved towards her private shower.

  
The hot water felt glorious on her aching muscles as she simply soaked under the steady stream, letting her thoughts wander anywhere but the painful events of her nightmares, feeling them land on her interaction with Kaidan on Horizon a month ago.

  
That meeting could have gone better, wishing that she could have gotten him to stop and listen before the Alliance showed up to take him home. He had hurt, God had he hurt, deep in his soul.  She could see it in his eyes, even now, because the sight was burned into her memory. It was one view she never thought that she would see from him. Another thing that she never thought she would see from him was disgust and disbelief. But both were understandable, even if she didn’t like it.

  
If she were in his shoes, Jamie knew she would have been disgusted with herself for being aligned with Cerberus in any shape or form for what they had seen in their abandoned research facilities and for what they had done to Rear Admiral Kahoku when he asked questions. Hell, when she had first found out that Cerberus had saved her from death by some mysterious means, the first thing she did once she got off the shuttle from another of Cerberus’ stations to Freedom’s Progress was fall to her knees behind a bush and felt the burn as the contents of her stomach came out and onto the ground. When she returned to the new Normandy, she made sure to rip off any Cerberus emblem she could find in the rooms they had given her, particularly clothing or uniforms.

  
His disbelief was easy to figure out as well.  Rumors had started spreading right after Freedom’s Progress and she kicked herself for not messaging him sooner, but she knew that Cerberus was monitoring everything that came to and left the SR-2 - not that he had listened when she tried to explain on Horizon - so she had been unable to send him so much as a birthday message for either him or Melina.

  
Melina. God, she missed her daughter so much it was a physical ache, but she refused to send her a message for the same reason she sent nothing to Kaidan. While unlikely, with as connected as Cerberus appeared, it was better to keep as much of her past life separate from her current situation as possible so Cerberus would keep its many eyes elsewhere and not on her private life. But she didn’t know how much longer she could go without seeing her child, even from a distance if necessary.

  
Checking on her daughter had been how she found out that Kaidan had agreed to take over her care. When she had discovered that Melina had been transfered to a school on the Citadel and that Kaidan was listed as her guardian, she had breathed a sigh of relief.  Sure, she could have found out that information by contacting John and Mary or even her lawyer, Mr. Todd, but she couldnt bring them into the mess she found herself in.

  
That didn’t keep her from checking on her daughter in any way she could. Jamie might only have been able to find out information about Melina’s schoolwork, but that was enough for Jamie.  For being the child from a mother who had only read books as a child and been part of the school of hard knocks prior to being sent to college by the Alliance, she was brilliant. So much potential poured from Melina as she worked her way through school at an alarming rate. Jamie felt pride fill her breast every time she thought about the achievements her school had reported her receiving.

  
Jamie squirted shampoo into the palm of her hand and started lathering. The knowledge that Melina already wasn’t going to follow in Jamie’s footsteps gave her ease. She had already put John and Mary through so much, she didn’t want to add more by having them care for a child that wasn’t even theirs. Perhaps she could discreetly find out where Kaidan was living now and try to see them.  A glimpse of her daughter. Just a glimpse, that was all she needed.

  
Jamie smacked her forehead, splattering shampoo all over her face after forgetting what she was doing, realizing just how much that simple sentence sounded like a Sand addict looking for their next hit. She quickly ran her head under the steaming showerhead to rinse the suds off her face and out of her eyes. She had to try though. Jamie wanted to be a good mother to Melina now that her daughter was so much closer. Would Kaidan let her see Melina if she simply asked?

  
Shepard emerged from her room several minutes later, dressed and ready to go to the Citadel to retrieve some supplies. They were preparing to go to the Omega 4 relay and no one on her team knew what to expect. So, extra rations would be needed, more ammunition, armor for her inner circle, as well as more things than she could list off the top of her head.

  
Outside the elevator, she lifted her hand over the button that called the car to her quarters, only to receive a beep.  The sensor had seen movement, but nothing else.  When Jamie looked at her wrist to see what was wrong with her ‘tool, she noticed that she had forgotten it on the nightstand next to her bed when she had removed it to take a shower. When she turned around to go back to her room, she found that the door to her room had already closed and locked itself, which meant that she was officially stuck in the space between the elevator and her room.

  
Jamie growled and put her fingers up to the piece in her ear to activate the comms she remembered, surprisingly, to put in before leaving her quarters. “Joker.”

  
“Yes Commander?”

  
“I need you to unlock my quarters.” She paused, lothe to admit it out loud, but knew that she might as well get it over with when it came to her pilot. “I seem to have locked myself out.”

  
Dead silence met her in which she could imagine Joker laughing his bony ass off at the current prediciment his commanding officer found herself in.  Granted, Jamie wanted to point out, after Therum, Horizon, Metgos, she was finding that she didn’t have the best of luck.

  
“Joker?”

  
“One moment, please, Commander. Mr. Moreau is having difficulty breathing at present.  I asked if he was in need of Dr. Chakwas, but he insisted that he would be fine momentarily.”

  
Jamie ran a hand down her face.  ‘I have a feeling that I’m never going to live this down now.’ She thought to herself before looking up at one of EDI’s closest monitoring cameras. “EDI, would you please unlock my door? I left my ‘tool next to my bed and can’t get in.”

  
“One moment, please, Commander.”

  
By the time Jamie’s gaze moved from the camera to the door, the red light indicating it was locked, had turned green and opened readily for her.  “Thanks, EDI.”

  
“You are welcome, Commander.”

  
Back inside her room, she strode over to where she had left her omni-tool and noticed a flashing light on its surface, indicating she had received a message while she had been in the shower or while stuck between the elevator and her bedroom. Jamie replaced her ‘tool as she walked to her office space, wondering why she hadn’t seen the flashing light on her private terminal when she walked out of the bathroom.

  
Jamie slid her hand past the sensor on the side of the machine and it activated the screen when it picked up her ‘tool, showing various options for her to choose from.  She deftly pressed the messages button, quickly going through the list of notes and emails from various people, nearly skipping right over one labeled “About Horizon…”  Jamie tapped on the message and slowly lowered herself into her seat as she began reading the message from Kaidan.

  
“Shepard,

  
“I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon. I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on, to focus on Melina. I can’t tell you how much taking care of her has helped. I'd finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel. Nothing serious, but trying to let myself have a life again, you know?

  
“Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus. I guess I really don't know who either of us is anymore. A lot has changed in the last two years and I can't just put that aside.

  
“Please be careful. I've watched too many people close to me die -- on Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon, on the Normandy. I couldn't bear it if I lost you again. If you're still the woman I remember I know you'll find a way to stop these Collector attacks. But Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted. Watch yourself.

  
“When things settle down a little... maybe... I don't know. Just take care. Perhaps the next time you’re on the Citadel, we could arrange to meet. Melina would want to see you for herself.

  
“--Kaidan “

  
Shepard stared at the words on the screen. So much feeling had gone into his words and she felt hope. When she re-read the message and got to the part about Cerberus, she felt her brows furrow.

  
“ ‘I guess I really don’t know who either of us is anymore’? If he’d let me speak to him instead of turning his back on me then I would have explained things. ‘A lot has changed in the last two years.’” Jamie felt her stomach drop. He had said that his date wasn’t serious, but then that comment about how a lot had changed? What did he mean? She was becoming confused and it was a feeling she hated.  Jamie liked all the information out in the open where everyone can see.  That was another issue she had with Cerberus, other than the human experimentation.  The Illusive Man was too secretive with his research and other pertinent information.

  
She needed to find Kaidan on the Citadel and get a few things cleared up, everything out there in the open. Before she took the Normandy and her crew through the Omega 4 relay. Before it was too late for them.

  
~//Y


End file.
